Cold revenge: Two arrested for framing rivals as Daish agents

Charges were not pressed against them and they were later released

FAISALABAD:

Two people were arrested for framing their rivals and making out to be organisers of Daesh (Islamic State) in Faisalabad. They were later released after the men they had tried to defame refused to press charges.

A spokesperson of the Samnabad police said on Thursday that some residents of Samanabad had alerted them to some posters on the walls of Samnabad Sports Complex. The posters ‘welcomed’ Daesh in Pakistan and urged the faithful to join Daish. It had the contact information of a man and his son who claimed to be the representatives of the Daesh network in Faisalabad.

The spokesperson said that people in the area had panicked and police officials had tried to calm them down saying they would not rest till they had decimated any presence of Daesh in Faisalabad. Intelligence agencies were informed and they started a search operation in the area.

The police called on the phone numbers listed on the posters and arrested Mehboob Javaid and his son Maqsood Ahmad from their house in Sinnora Colony.

Police said they interrogated the men who vehemently denied having any links to or sympathies for the Daesh. They said that they had no knowledge of the posters pasted on the wall. When asked why someone would want to frame them for this, they told police they had litigation with Muhammad Faisal, a resident of Nawabanwala. They said that Faisal might have been trying to defame him.

Police then took Faisal into custody and interrogated him. Police said that he had confessed to publishing the posters to defame his rivals. He told police that his accomplice Faisal Younas and he had designed the poster and pasted it on the wall of the Samanabad Sports Complex.

The court then approved bails for Javaid and his son.

Samanabad police said they had registered a case against Faisal and Younas under Section 2 of the Punjab Prohibition of Expressing Matters of on Walls Act ACT, 1995, on February 22. They were sent to the district jail on judicial remand by the judicial magistrate. Javaid, however, withdrew his complaint after which the magistrate granted Faisal and Younas bail. They have been released, the spokesperson said.

Advocate Chaudhary Muhammad Akram said that the police had made a weak case against the accused after which the judge had to accept their bail applications. If the police had registered a case under the Anti-Terrorism Act, they would not have been released on bail, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2016.