Police accused of non-registration of FIRs

PESHAWAR: Police in the provincial capital are not registering cases despite repeated requests even in incidents of violence against government officials and fraud of millions of rupees.

On Tuesday, a team of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited was attacked with iron rods by armed locals when the officials were disconnecting illegal connections. One of the workers sustained head injuries. The staff said the attackers also fired shots.

The Tehkal police refused to lodge the FIR and instead registered a daily diary. One of the victims said the cops should lodge a case of attempted murder as the staff members sustained serious injuries.

“When our teams tried to record the evidence of a violation, sons of Arsala Khan opened fire on SNGPL teams and manhandled our staff. During this incident, our staff member Ibrar Hussain son of Altaf Hussain was beaten,” a deputy chief engineer wrote a letter to the Peshawar police bosses.

It said Ibrar Hussain sustained critical head injuries and was rushed to the nearby Khyber Teaching Hospital treatment. The officials asked for proper action and lodging of FIR under the relevant sections against the attackers.

In another incident the Rahman Baba police station refused the registration of a case after a local was deprived of Rs1.5 million. One Irshad-ur-Rehman said he paid Rs1.5 million after buying a car from a resident of Charsadda and the remaining amount was to be paid after a month. He said when he called the person after arranging the rest of the amount, the fraudster disappeared with the original papers of the vehicle. Later the Punjab police intercepted him on Kohat Road and took away the car, saying it was a lifted vehicle.

“We approached the Rahman Baba and Bhanamari police stations many times but the cops refused to register our FIR against the fraudster who deprived us of Rs1.5 million and also sold us a stolen car,” said Irshad. He said they have been approaching the cops for two weeks but nobody paid any heed to their issue. There are serious concerns among the people as police openly refuse lodging FIRs in cases of fraud, theft, robbery, attacks and order cases.