Blackmail: Police investigating who put up newspaper ad against SSP Kiani

Man, who allegedly paid for the ad, was booked for defaming police officer

ISLAMABAD: Police are investigating how an advertisement against a key Islamabad police officer was published in a local newspaper.

The ad, published in an Urdu daily on October 10, targeted SSP-Operations Islamabad Sajid Kiani and called upon the government to take action against him.

The incoherent and ambiguous ad, published prominently on the back page of the newspaper, had accused Kiani of registering FIRs against Islamabad residents on trumped up charges and thus destabilising the government. The ad bore the name of ‘Haji Shaukat, a human rights leader’ at the end.

The ad has not only caused embarrassment to the newspaper management, but it has also landed the man who had allegedly booked the ad in trouble. Sources say the ad came in late. Page-makers and editors had finalised the rest of the page and left the space for the ad. When it finally arrived, it was pasted on the page and the paper was put to bed without anybody noticing what was written in the ad.

The newspaper management later approached police and lodged a case against a marketing man who had allegedly booked the ad. A cheating and defamation case has been registered at the Aabpara police station against Ashiq Husain Sahu, the marketing man who the newspaper management believes to have sent in the ad.

ASI Fawad Khalid, investigation officer of the case, says Shaukat whose name is printed with the ad is the elder brother of Sahu and is currently out of the country. Police believe the ad was an attempt by Sahu to malign and ‘blackmail’ the SSP.

When contacted, Sahu denied his role in the ad and hung up. The investigation officer said Sahu had initially fled to Iran to avoid his arrest in the case but is now back in the country and has obtained pre-arrest bail from court.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2017.