Fraud allegations: Engineer Wali Rahimoon gets bail

KARACHI:

An old Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) hand was granted bail against a solvent surety of Rs2 million in a business dispute on Friday by Justice Ahmed Ali M Shaikh of the Sindh High Court (SHC).

Engineer Wali Muhammad Rahimoon, who was victimised by the state apparatus in the past and allegedly at present, was booked on charges of committing fraud with his business partner. The complainant in the case is his partner Salahuddin Osto, who alleges that he gave Rahimoon Rs2.8 million to import generators.

Osto alleges that Rahimoon did not import the machinery and when he demanded the money back, he was threatened. Rahimoon was arrested a month back.

On Friday, his lawyer, while arguing for bail, said that the matter was of a civil nature and in essence a business dispute. It was a case of civil and not criminal proceedings. His lawyer argued that while Rahimoon was an old member of the PPP and had faced hard times during former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s tenure, he was also victimised recently as he arranged a public meeting in Thar for former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, (who has fallen out of favour with the party).

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th,  2011.