Fake cases: Police snubbed, teen ‘robber’ granted bail

Investigation officer told to work fairly and not abuse his authority.

LAHORE:

A judicial magistrate on Tuesday granted bail to a student allegedly implicated by Nawab Town police in five false cases of robbery.

The police produced Muhammad Hamid (an Intermediate student at Government Science College) before a court seeking additional physical remand but the judge sent the student on judicial remand and later released him on bail. A court staffer told The Express Tribune that the judge had snubbed Sub Inspector Liaquat, the investigation officer for the cases, when he sought the additional physical remand. He said when the judge ruled for judicial remand in four cases Liaquat withdrew the file for yet another case. The judge said if seven days of physical remand hadn’t yielded much, another week wouldn’t be of any help either.

The judge also told the investigation officer to “work fairly and not abuse his authority”. The judge sent the student on judicial remand and later granted him after-arrest bail.

Rs300,000 damages sought for defective phone

A consumer court issued a notice to the proprietor of a mobile phone shop accused of selling a defective cell phone. The petitioner has demanded Rs300,000 as damages.

Muhammad Akram said he had bought a cell phone worth Rs10,000 from Muhammad Abid of Ali Mobile, Mozang, on the assurance that Abid would take responsibility if the cell phone developed a fault.

Akram said a few days later, the phone started hanging and its keys stopped working properly. He said he complained about it to Abid who promised him that he would get it repaired. Akram said when he collected his phone from the shop a few days later, the phone still had the same problem. Akram said when he approached Abid, he refused to replace the phone or repair it.

He requested the court to direct the respondent to pay the aforesaid damages.

Proprietor Abid said that Akram’s phone had indeed developed a problem, but he had fixed it and Akram had been satisfied with the repairs then.

He said Akram had returned a month later with another complaint, but when he [Abid] examined the phone, it was fine and the petitioner returned home with the phone. He said he had no idea that Akram had approached a court.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2014.