Ordeal of a foreign investor

LAHORE
SUFFERINGS of a South Korean national, who landed in Pakistan for investment purpose but implicated by the FIA Gujrat in a fake case, have not ended even after the passage of over two and a half years.
A South Korean national named Han Gya Woo first time came to Pakistan in 2006 and visited the entire country during a one-month long stay. He came back to Pakistan again in 2007 on a multiple business visa and invested $6000 in purchasing buffaloes and cows from Gujranwala cattle market.
To run his business in Pakistan, he got registered his company with a name of SKY HAN & CO. In 2008, Han went back to Korea and came back along with $55,000 and purchased cows, buffaloes and other cattle from Sargodha, Sahiwal, Okara and Cheechawatni to establish a dairy farm at Jokaliyan, Tehsil Phalia, District Mandi Bahauddin. In 2009, he brought $50,000 more from Korea to expand his dairy business.
In the meantime, he purchased six acres of land from the local area to grow fodder for his cattle. He also purchased tractor and other related things against a sum of Rs5 million. At the same time, when his business had started to flourish, influential locals with the help of police and others started creating problems for him and he was allegedly threatened by the locals and the police for one or the other reason.
On September 11, 2012, a team of FIA Gujrat led by the then FIA Inspector Kausar Mehmood, now dismissed from the service, implicated Han in a fake case and registered an FIR No 201/2012 against him under section 14 of the Foreign Act 1946 for staying illegally in Pakistan. The inspector allegedly threatened him to leave Pakistan immediately; otherwise, he will allegedly murder him.
The raiding team charged him for illegally staying in Pakistan as the visa of Han had expired on August 28, 2012. The FIA officials did not hear his plea that he had applied for extension in his visa since July 2012 with the interior ministry but implicated him in a fake case and put him behind the bars. Due to the case, the Korean national, who had come to Pakistan for investment, had to spend a few days in a jail.
Besides visiting the jail, he had to face some other bitter realities as well. During the days he remained in the jail, his animals got ill as his five servants had fled the dairy farm after the FIA’s raid and there was no one to take care of them. Besides ailment of his animals, many fetuses died.
The sorry tale of Han Gya Woo did not end here either. He was also implicated in a sexual harassment case but the Supreme Court declared him innocent later.
When he was declared innocent in different cases, he filed a complaint against Inspector Kausar Mehmood, on which, an inquiry was held and Kausar was charge sheeted on July 24, 2014 by Director FIA Punjab Dr Usman Anwar.
Director FIA appointed Assistant Director FIA, Sami-ur-Rehman Jami, as Inquiry Officer of the case who submitted his report holding Kausar guilty for conducting an illegal raid on a foreigner and putting him behind the bars. He termed Kausar a notorious figure in FIA having bad reputation. Jami wrote about Kausar that he was also dismissed from service in 2007 in Double Shah case.
On November 21, 2014, the then Director General FIA, Ghalib Ali Bandesha, dismissed Kausar from his service after not satisfying with his replies in a show-cause notice as well as his personal hearings.
As Han suffered a huge loss, both financial and physical, he moved to Prime Minister of Pakistan, President of Pakistan, DG FIA and IGP Punjab for compensation.
Taking notice of the issue, the President Secretariat on January 16, 2015, forwarded complaint of Han to Director General FIA for appropriate action. The DG FIA on January 28, 2015 wrote to Director FIA Lahore Zone to take necessary actions on the matter.
The DG FIA again on March 3, 2015 sent a reminder to Director FIA Lahore Zone for taking appropriate action to redress the grievances of the complainant.
Director FIA Punjab Dr Usman Anwar on Tuesday wrote a letter to RPO Gujranwala requesting him to register an FIR against former FIA Inspector Kausar Mehmood, a resident of Chak Malook, Tehsil/District Chakwal in the police station concerned under relevant sections of law for harassment and threatening to murder Han Gya Woo.
Talking to The News on Tuesday, Kausar said that he had been dismissed from the service for his act and now was busy in running his own business. He said he would face action if police would register an FIR against him.
Standing outside the office of Director FIA Punjab on Tuesday, Han told The News that he had been running from pillar-to-post for the past two years to get justice.
A disgruntled Han, who also wanted to become a Muslim after studying Holy Quran in S. Korea, said he wanted to meet Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to narrate him his ordeal. As I have heard a lot from people about the CM Punjab, so I wanted to meet him for his immediate help in addressing my concerns, Han said.
‘Why you give multiple visas to businessmen if you don’t protect them in Pakistan’, he said to Pakistani authorities. He claimed that as he had lost cash, property and cattle all worth over Rs25 million since he was implicated by the FIA in a fake case, he wanted to get back the entire amount. ‘I want my money back before leaving this country for good’, the dejected victim pleaded, saying that he will not come back to Pakistan again.
When contacted, Dr Usman Anwar told The News that he had requested the police concerned to register an FIR against the corrupt former inspector under sections 365, 506 and other sections of the PPC as these sections don’t fall in the domain of the FIA.
To a question, he said, such acts affect foreigners who come to Pakistan for business purposes.