Locker heist suspect says she was ‘framed’

FIA had registered case against disappearance of $100,000 from bank’s locker

KARACHI:

A woman employee of a bank branch on Zamzama Avenue in Karachi told the top court of the province that she was falsely implicated in the case of missing $100,000 from the locker of the branch.

The counsel for the suspect told the Sindh High Court (SHC) that his client, a mother of seven-year-old child, was trapped to save the real culprits.

"The Federal Investigation Agency has yet to submit a challan while the trial court is not even hearing the case and during all this time, the suspect is behind bars," the defence counsel stated. A two-member bench of SHC headed by Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro directed the FIA to collect the record and submit the challan to the concerned court within two weeks. The petitioner's lawyer told the court that the bank officials had conspired against his client to trap her in the case.

The lawyer, in his arguments, said the female has a seven-year-old child who is away from her mother. He said that the case also has a humanitarian aspect. He said that attempts are being made to keep the accused behind bars on technical grounds instead of legal grounds. The counsel informed the court that the lower court is not hearing the accused bail application and waiting for the submission of the challan in the court. The court expressed its annoyance at the FIA officialsfor the delay in presenting the challan against the female banker, Nosheen, in the lower court.

Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro, while addressing the FIA officials, said, "You have left all other bank officials and focused on just one employee during the case interrogation."

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2022.