Narrow escape: Explosives recovered from impounded car

Case registered against SHO for concealing facts, keeping vehicle in personal use.

FAISALABAD:

A case was registered against the Ghulam Muhammadabad station house officer on Tuesday for keeping an impounded vehicle for personal use and concealing facts from the department.

The case was registered under Section 155-C of Police Order 2002 (willful breach of law by a police officer).

Sources in the police said that SHO Rana Muhammad Asif had stopped a car at a picket on Narwala Road on June 1 for not having a registration member.

They said after a long discussion, the driver asked the SHO to grant him some time to bring the registration documents.

The driver said that the car had been purchased recently and that he had applied for a number plate.  They said the SHO let him go, but seized the car. The car remained in the SHO’s personal use for two days.

On Monday night, they said, the SHO took it for a wash at a petrol station and left.

A few minutes later, he received a call from the station and was called back.

The workers told him that they had noticed a suspicious looking box installed underneath the car when it was lifted up for the wash.

When the box was dismantled it was found to contain explosives detonators and remote control kits and buffalo cylinders.

The car was then taken to the police station, where three suicide jackets, remote control kits, detonators, hand grenades, pistols, a Kalashnikov rifle, detonating card rolls, buffalo cylinders and highly explosive powder were discovered.

They said instead of revealing the actual date when the car was confiscated, the SHO reported it as having been impounded on Monday night. He told his seniors that the car was stopped at a police picket, while the driver fled. It was then taken into custody.

However, it was soon learnt that the car had been impounded earlier.

A case was then registered against the SHO.

City Police Officer (CPO) Riffat Mukhtar Raja held a press conference in this regard on Tuesday. He said the station house officer had made up the story. He said his colleagues had confirmed that the SHO’s narrative was concocted.

He said the station house officer would be punished for trying to deceive the department.

He also said the police were looking for the driver.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2013.