Senior police officials told Dawn on Tuesday that action had been taken against two sub-inspectors and three constables of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) after a departmental inquiry found them “guilty” in the incident of kidnapping an Afghan businessman and later releasing him after receiving money.
Giving details, they said the dismissed officials had raided a business center of the Afghan national located in the Blue Area a few weeks ago. During the search operation, the team recovered a huge amount of money from the center and arrested the Afghan national, who remained under “illegal detention” at the CTD building for a few hours.
Another Foreigner ‘Looted’ in Kohsar Police Jurisdiction
Later, they said, the arrested man was released after receiving extortion money. The CTD men had demanded cash in exchange for the businessman’s freedom, threatening to fabricate a case against him if he didn’t comply. After his release, the victim brought the matter to the notice of senior police officials, who directed the concerned CTD officer to conduct an inquiry.
During the inquiry, the CTD officials were found guilty and were asked to return the money to the businessman. However, they failed to return the full amount as they had already spent some of it. Based on the inquiry, the officials said, all five personnel were dismissed from service.
Police sources told Dawn that in a separate incident, a foreign national complained to senior police officers that some police personnel in uniform allegedly raided his house in the Kohsar police station’s jurisdiction and took away millions of rupees. The sources said a police team had raided the house on reports that the foreigner was involved in some financial scams, including “skimming.”
After the incident, the foreigner contacted senior police officials and informed them about the event, terming it as “robbery.” In this case too, the sources said, the CTD officials had been asked to return the “looted amount” to the foreigner. The police personnel, the sources said, returned most of the money to the foreigner on the condition that he would not initiate any legal action against the police officers.
When contacted, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Jawad Tariq confirmed the first incident, stating that the CTD officials were found guilty and had been dismissed from service. The DIG said that whenever they received a complaint about police personnel being involved in illegal activities, an inquiry was ordered and strict action was taken against those found involved. However, he did not comment on the second incident.
