Family feud over song and shop in Punjab lands man in jail

Arrest made under Loudspeaker Act; case stemmed from family feud between two brothers, both claim ownership of shop

A dispute over the ownership of a shop escalated into a police case, leaving one man caught in the middle of tensions between two brothers who both claimed ownership. Patoki police later registered a case and arrested the tenant, a mobile shop owner, for playing a song at high volume.

The incident unfolded in Patoki, a tehsil in Kasur district, where the police arrested the owner of a mobile repairing shop and registered a case against him under Section 6 of the Punjab Sound Act 2015 on Thursday.

Patoki SHO Mehar Muhammad Irshad told The Express Tribune that the action was taken after a video surfaced. The video, recorded on October 22, showed a man playing a song at high volume inside his shop.

According to SHO Irshad, this was a bailable offence, and the accused has since been released on personal surety. After his release, the accused, Muhammad Farooq, told The Express Tribune that the shop where he runs his business is a rented property. Ownership of the shop and rent collection are disputed between two brothers, Habib and Ali.

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He said he pays rent to Ali, but Habib allegedly enjoys police support. Habib made the video of Farooq listening to the song and handed it over to the police, who then filed the case against him. “Is listening to Madam Noor Jahan’s song a serious crime that dozens of police officers came to arrest me as if I were a terrorist?” said Farooq.

It has been learned that in recent days, two similar cases have been registered in Punjab — one of them against a rickshaw driver in Okara. Supreme Court lawyer Rana Khan stated that the Punjab Police need to exercise caution in directly registering cases.

According to the law, if there is a complaint of violation of the Loudspeaker Act, the police must first warn the person, and if the person doesn't obey the police warning, he should be counseled through the area’s elected representative.

Direct registration of a case is not legally justified and amounts to violating a person’s dignity. Khan added that any person facing such a case can file a defamation suit against the concerned police officials.