Mining marbles : Businessmen go to court against fake FIRs

Court issues notices to Sindh prosecutor general.

KARACHI:

Five men, who have a licence to mine marbles in Balochistan, have moved the Sindh High Court against fake FIRs registered against them at different police stations in Jamshoro and Karachi.

The petitioners - Jamil Ahmed Bareja, the licensee, Abdul Karim, a government schoolteacher in Khuzdar, Abdul Haq, a health department employee, Abdul Hameed, a private employee, and Abdul Rehman, a business partner of Bareja - were represented in court by their lawyer, Ashikue Raza Advocate.

Bareja said that he obtained two licences to mine marbles in Balochistan and after a lot of work, he managed to turn that area into a lucrative business spot. However, the sardars of the Bhotani tribe were not happy with his success and asked him to leave the province.

Since the Pakistan Peoples Party came to power, Bareja claimed, he was harassed repeatedly. His licence was also cancelled but was restored later by the Balochistan High Court. This decision was also upheld by the Supreme Court.

The tribal leaders did not give up and continued to pressure him into leaving his business, they implicated him in fake cases, he said. In the latest, they registered four cases against him at Thana Bola Khan police station.

The petitioner said that the police registered these cases at the behest of the Jamshoro district nazim. Bareja and his men were arrested from Bailey village on February 28 this year but the FIRs against them were registered only when the local newspapers published stories that the accused were being shifted to Balochistan.

In his instant petition, Bareja said that the respondent police officials are threatening to arrest him again. The petitioners asked the court to hear the petition in Karachi and to cancel the proceedings in the alleged fake cases. They also asked the court to prevent the police from registering any new cases against them without obtaining permission from the court.

On Thursday, justices Maqbool Baqar and Shahid Anwar Bajwa issued pre-admission notices to the Sindh prosecutor general and other respondents and suspended proceedings till April 20. The bench also suspended proceedings in six cases against the petitioners till that date.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th,  2011.