PASSCO official’s bail plea dismissed

Jatoi Tehsil Additional District and Sessions Judge Ahsan Mehboob Bukhari on Tuesday rejected the bail plea of the regional manager of Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) in Alipur due to non-prosecution in a case regarding alleged embezzlement in handling gunny bags for wheat procurement.

Passco official Sufyan Akram had approached the court with the request to grant him pre-arrest bail after a case was registered against him on the report of the assistant commissioner of Jatoi over allegations that he was selling gunny bags to middlemen instead of providing them to farmers for wheat procurement.

The court had granted him interim pre-arrest bail.

However, on Tuesday his bail was not confirmed and the court rejected his request as he failed to appear.

Meanwhile, the police booked seven people for attacking an official of the Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) and snatching a mobile phone from him at Taleri Bypass.

According to police sources, meter reader Muhammad Irshad had detected power theft at a furniture shop owned by Rasheed Ahmed at Roshinabad. The official was making a video of a wire hook as a proof of the power theft when the accused Rasheed Ahmed, Nazir Ahmed, Iqbal Hussain and Sohail Ahmed along with three unidentified accomplices attacked the official. The accused tortured the Mepco official and also snatched his mobile phone before escaping from the scene. On the application of SDO Muhammad Akram, the city police registered the case against four nominated and three unknown suspects under sections 148,186,353,506,342 and 462.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2024.