Computer stolen from Prosecution Dept

Police, prosecution department conducting inquiries.

LAHORE:

A desktop computer has been stolen from the Prosecution Department offices at the district and sessions court, with officials refusing to say if it contained any sensitive information.

According to an FIR registered at Islampura police station on the complaint of Prosecution Department staffer Muhammad Saleem, burglars broke into the office on the night between Monday and Tuesday and stole a CPU and an LCD from the office of Superintendent Mushtaq Ahmed Saqib. The case was registered under Sections 380 (theft) and 457 (trespass) of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified people.

District Public Prosecutor Shaikh Saeed confirmed that a computer had been stolen from the offices. He said that the burglars seemed to have entered the building from the roof, the door leading to which had been left unlocked. Asked whether the department would act against the staffers responsible for leaving the door unlocked, he did not give a straight answer. Asked if the computer contained any sensitive information, he declined to comment.

A source in the Prosecution Department said that it appeared that the burglars had first tried to enter via a window near the office of the district public prosecutor, but they had been unable to cut the netting on the window. He said that they then entered via the roof door, stolen the computer and left via the balcony. He said nothing else was stolen from the building.

The source said that the staffer responsible for looking after the superintendent’s office, upon seeing that the computer was missing on Tuesday morning, had assumed that his boss had taken the machine somewhere. But when Saqib came to work, he asked the staffer to get him a printout of a document saved in the computer. The staffer searched the other offices in the building but couldn’t find it. The matter was then brought to the attention of the district public prosecutor, and later the police.

The source said that the Islampura DSP had interviewed Prosecution Assistant Muhammad Iqbal, Junior Clerk Muhammad Naveed and staffers Zahid Attari and Muhammad Saleem regarding the theft. Iqbal, Naveed and Attari had locked the doors of the offices on Monday evening while Saleem was the first to arrive to open the doors on Tuesday morning.

The district public prosecutor directed Deputy District Public Prosecutor Waqar Bhatti to investigate the matter and submit a report in three days.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2012.