Life threats: Seeking police protection, teacher knocks on SC door

Says his family will be forced to escape from village if the court denies request.

ISLAMABAD: A schoolteacher from Toba Tek Singh has approached the Supreme Court to request police protection from men who claim to be his creditors.

In an application submitted to the Supreme Court on August 22, Muhammad Azam Javed, 37 requested police protection for his family.

He is a teacher at a government school in Toba Tek Singh’s Pir Mahal tehsil and claims his family is under serious threat from creditors who financed his uncle Haji Akram, a property developer. Claiming innocence, he blamed his uncle for falsely plotting against him and holding him responsible for deeds he had no knowledge of.

The Pir Mahal police refuted Javed’s claims, saying Javed and Akram had both been charged with fraud in a case registered at the police station three months ago. Officials said Akram’s challan was also issued in the same case, adding that in the most recent case, Javed owes Rs 3.5 million to the creditors and a case might also be registered against him.

While denying the charges, Javed said seven creditors had made payments to his uncle to buy plots in a housing scheme his uncle was developing, and that his only fault was signing a financial document as a witness. Later on, when the land plotting plan failed to materialise, the creditors came asking for their money even though Akram was listed as the sole recipient of the money in the document.

The complainant said the creditors attacked his house on May 25 and kidnapped him from his school on May 30. On both occasions, he got lucky because his children and the school’s principal respectively called Rescue 15 for help. He further said the local police refused to help him as his uncle is an influential man.

“I have lost all hope in the local police and courts. If the Supreme Court does not hear my plea, I will have nowhere to go,” he said.

In the submitted application, he has stated that he entered a tripartite mediation process in which two of the parties — him and Akram — submitted two cheques each worth Rs3.5 million but after the latter turned sides, he had to file an application to cancel the mediation on August 19.

The Pir Mahal police confirmed Javed’s family had contacted Rescue 15 for help, but added the requests were exaggerated.

Javed, currently in Islamabad, said if the Supreme Court does not help him, his only option is to somehow escape from the village with his family and that both he and his wife will have to leave their government jobs.

Haji Akram could not be reached over the phone for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2013.