Criminal negligence: Police release wanted criminal for want of arrest record

The suspect was wanted by several police stations and carried a head bounty of Rs500,000.

SUKKUR: Larkana police is conducting an inquiry against the officials who allegedly released a wanted criminal from Dhamra police station on Thursday.

A police team, led by Hatri Ghulam Shah police SHO Muhammad Urs Noonari. had arrested the criminal, identified as Ibrahim alias Nandho Jatoi, during a raid in the katcha area.

Nandho Jatoi is wanted by the Market, Dari, Akil and other police stations in several cases of crime, including murder, kidnapping and robbery. After the raid, SHO Noorani had handed Jatoi over to Dhamra police SHO Nazir Ahmed Magsi, who had kept him in the lockup without making any entry in the records.



On Thursday, Nandho’s cousin, Ghulam Qadir Jatoi, filed a petition in the district and sessions court Larkana, stating that Larkana police had arrested Nandho and kept him in illegal confinement at Dhamra police station. Larkana district and sessions judge, Syed Irshad Hussain Shah, ordered the raid commissioner, Imdad Hussain Junejo, to visit Dhamra police station and rescue the detainee. The commissioner had raided the police station and found Nandho Jatoi in the lockup without any entry in the records. He ordered the Dhamra SHO to release the detainee and directed him to appear before the court along with the relevant records.

When the district and sessions judge came to know about the suspect’s criminal background, he directed Larkana SSP Khalid Mustafa Korai to probe the matter and submit a report within 48 hours. Instead of taking action against the relevant SHOs, however, Korai suspended the head constable of Dhamra police station, Deedar Khokhar. When contacted, SHO Noonari told The Express Tribune that he had registered a case against Nandho Jatoi after arresting him. “There is no lockup facility at the Hatri Ghulam Shah police station, so we handed him over to Dhamra police.” He claimed that the raid commissioner had refused to listen to the appeals of the Dhamra police officials and forced them to release the criminal.

Meanwhile, the Dhamra SHO Nazir Ahmed Magsi said that he was on leave when the commissioner had raided the police station and released the criminal.

Despite repeated attempts to contact him, SSP Korai was unavailable for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2013.