FIA told to provide case documents to Chinese nationals’ lawyers

A judicial magistrate of District South directed the Federal Investigation Agency on Tuesday to provide copies of its case documents to the lawyers of the five Chinese nationals accused of ATM skimming devices fraud.

The attorneys for the accused Chinese nationals had earlier submitted their documents in court and said that they had been hired to plead the case for the defendants. The FIA has registered cases against the five accused pertaining to fraud and cheating under various clauses of the Electronics Act.

The Chinese nationals are accused of installing skimming devices on ATMs to steal customers’ data and using it to make fake ATM cards to withdraw millions of rupees belonging to Pakistani citizens.

According to the investigation officer, the suspects belong to a 10-member gang involved in stealing millions through skimming devices installed on ATMs of several banks on Tipu Sultan Road, Abdullah Haroon Road and other parts of the city.

The five Chinese suspects were arrested by police separately from various parts of the city last month, including Defence, Bahadurabad and Saddar. Cases against them were lodged with the FIA’s Cyber Crime Cell which took over the investigation.

After hearing the lawyers’ appeal, the court on Tuesday ordered the FIA to give copies of its case documents to the counsels of the accused persons and set the next date of hearing for February 27.

Sharea Faisal ‘shootout’

Separately, a judicial magistrate for District East ordered the IO in the case of the murder of Muhammad Maqsood, who was shot dead on Sharea Faisal last month during an alleged police shootout with a gang of car thieves, to submit a progress report in the investigation of the case within 14 days.

During the hearing, the IO informed the court that a case had recently been registered against a police officer and three constables but so far no one has been arrested.

The IO presented a photocopy of the FIR against Assistant Sub-Inspector Tariq Khan and constables Akbar, Shaukat Ali and Abdul Waheed which was registered on February 18 on the court’s orders. The court noted that none of the accused had approached the court to obtaining pre-arrest bail in the murder case.

Earlier this month, the bereaved family had filed a plea in court requesting it to order the police to register a case against the accused cops for Maqsood’s murder, stating that police had refused to cooperate.

The court accepted the plea and had issued the orders after which an FIR was finally lodged – almost a month after the incident took place. Maqsood had lost his life after being injured in what police claimed was a shootout with suspected robbers on Sharea Faisal on January 20.

The police had claimed that a group in a white Toyota Corolla had been involved in robbing commuters from the airport for the past few months by pretending to be police officials. They added that when a police party intercepted the robbers that day, they attempted to escape in a rickshaw being driven by a man named Abdul Rauf, who was accompanied by his friend Maqsood.