CIA Inspector Bashir Niazi admits Medialogic GM accompanied investigators. PHOTO: EXPRESS
Following the revelation of the alleged conspiracy of private TV ratings company Medialogic in collusion with the CIA of the Lahore Police to blackmail Express News, Inspector Bashir Niazi has admitted before an inquiry team that he had barged into the home of Medialogic employee Shaista Mushtaq.
The inquiry team – headed by Rawalpindi Capital Police Officer Israr Abbasi, and comprising the SSP (Operations), Potohar SP Ateeq Tahir, Rawal Town SP Malik Iqbal and DSP (Legal) Raza Azmat as members – is investigating the Medialogic case.
Shaista and her parents and brothers were once again summoned to Police Lines, where they were grilled for six to seven hours.
The CIA’s Inspector Niazi and other officials who accompanied him admitted that they had accompanied Medialogic GM Khalid Dost during the raid on Shaista’s house in Rawalpindi. However, Niazi denied that they had forcibly taken two of Shaista’s brothers from Rawalpindi to Lahore.
After recording his statement before the inquiry team, Inspector Niazi told the media that he had accompanied Dost to Shaista’s house in Rawalpindi with an arrest warrant.
Asked if he was bound by law to inform the local police before carrying out an investigation or action in another police jurisdiction, Inspector Niazi said: “I didn’t feel it was important to inform the local police.”
When asked if a policewoman had accompanied him during the raid, Inspector Niazi could not provide a satisfactory answer.
The inquiry team also had Shaista, her family and the relevant CIA officials sit in the same room for recording their statements at the same time.
Statements of Inspector Niazi, Sub-Inspector Mustafa and other officials who had accompanied them were recorded in the second phase of the inquiry.
According to police sources, Shaista, her mother and both the brothers maintained their stance in the matter during the inquiry.
They pointed out that the CIA officials had barged into their house in the dead of the night and picked up the father and brothers, adding that the father had been abandoned a short distance away from the house. They also recounted everything that happened in Lahore.
The inquiry team later put the two parties in separate rooms and asked all the CIA officials to hand in their written and signed statements. The officials, however, felt the need to corroborate with one other before they jotted down their statements.
A senior Rawalpindi police officer told Express News that statements of both the parties had been recorded. He said mobile phone records and location data of all the CIA officials concerned as well as Shaista and her family would be obtained to carry the investigation forward, adding that CPO Abbasi would visit Shaista’s house to investigate.
The officer said the family’s claim that the two brothers were detained in Lahore by the CIA officials would also be verified.
He said Inspector Niazi had admitted before the inquiry team that he had obtained an arrest warrant after registering an FIR in Lahore and then headed to Rawalpindi to raid Shaista’s house.
Police sources said the inquiry initiated on the orders of the court would be completed within the next 24 to 48 hours.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 12th, 2015.
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