Police bust gang of fake LHC officials

Forged documents seized during arrest in court’s parking area

LAHORE: Members of a gang of swindlers posing as senior officials of the Lahore High Court (LHC) have been arrested from the court’s car parking area. They were suspected of minting millions of rupees by telling people that they would provide jobs to them.

There were four men and a woman in the gang and the ringleader claimed to be assistant registrar of the LHC.

The woman wearing a lawyer’s uniform used to introduce herself as protocol officer of the mastermind. Two men of the gang, also dressed like lawyers, and a driver lured people looking for employment.

Fake letterheads and appointment letters with forged signatures of several judges, including two former top judges of superior courts, were confiscated from them.

Some fake orders of judges along with stamps were also seized in which appointment of some people on various positions had allegedly been confirmed. The gang also used a car with a blue revolving light.

A police official told The Express Tribune that the arrested woman was claiming that she had nothing to do with the charges as she believed she had been appointed senior protocol officer for the gang’s mastermind Mohammad Mansha as an additional registrar. The car’s driver also claimed that he had nothing to do with the scam.

Inspector Zafar Iqbal, the Investigation Officer (IO) of the case, conformed that the suspects were arrested from the parking area of the LHC. He said the woman had been sent on judicial remand, while Old Anarkali police had obtained five-day physical remand of the four other gang members.

The police had sought 14-day remand of the accused to investigate the matter and ascertain where the fake documents and stamps were prepared and who had signed them. However, the judicial magistrate granted five-day physical remand.

A senior lawyer said the gang’s members were initially taken to the Committee Room of the LHC Bar Association (LHCBA) because some of them were wearing lawyers’ uniform. After that they were taken to Chief Justice Mamoon Rasheed Sheikh and then handed over to police.

Old Anarkali Police registered an FIR under sections 420, 468, 471, 170 and 171 of Pakistan Penal Code and 112-A of the Provincial Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1965 against Mansha, Munawar Hussain, Mohammad Rafi, Waqas Ahmed and Shazia Bibi.

Among the fake documents confiscated at the spot was a letterhead of ‘Lahore High Court Multan Bench Multan’, which carried the address of Badami Bagh Lahore.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2020.