Gold robberies: Police write to FBR to verify loss claims

‘Imitation jewellers have reported they were robbed of gold worth millions’.

LAHORE:

The police, sceptical of the claims of jewellers recently robbed, has written to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) asking for the complainants’ tax returns.

Orgnaised Crime (CIA) wrote the letter a week ago, following a spate of robberies and dacoities at jewellery shops across the city.

The complainant jewellers, in most of the cases, claim that gold worth millions of rupees was taken away. The CIA wants to make sure, said SP Captain (retd) Liaqat Ali Malik, that the jewellers hadn’t exaggerated claims of loss in the FIRs. Police need to check the veracity of the claims, he said.

On March 27, two jewellers from Karachi registered an FIR at Civil Lines police station, claiming that 1.6 kilogrammes of gold was taken away by robbers who stopped their rickshaw. On April 30, a Garhi Shahu-based jeweller said he had been deprived of Rs1.7 million worth of gold. A Green Town jeweller and two in Mozang also registered FIRs last month saying that armed men had taken away gold worth millions.

The latest of such claims came on Friday when the owner of a jewellery shop located in Karim Block, Gulshan Iqbal police precinct, said that gold worth Rs700 million was taken away.

In the letter, a copy of which is available to The Express Tribune, Organised Crime (CIA) has asked the Federal Board of Revenue to check the tax returns of the complainants.

SP Malik said, “People love to exaggerate losses. The wrong claims then cause problems for the police. Even if we arrest the culprits, we can’t recover the loot reported [by the complainant].” He said that there had been cases where imitation jewellery makers had claimed that they had been deprived of gold worth millions of rupees.

With the “low recovery rate” the police, he said, are then suspected by the public of misappropriation of the recovered loot. “In the end, the police do not get due credit despite best efforts,” he remarked.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2012.