Zubair Qureshi
A District and Sessions Judge of the Anti-Corruption Rawalpindi Court has awarded 96 years of rigorous imprisonment and a total fine of Rs5.8 million to four people including two revenue officials, for their involvement in multiple cases of cheating, manipulation, and for committing fraudulent ownership papers’ forgery to a prominent British Pakistani family.
Special Judge Ali Nawaz has sentenced the accused Aurangzeb Patwari, Malik Muhammad Safdar, Muhammad Almas Abbasi, Haq Nawaz Abbasi and Raja Shahid Ahmed for fraudulently occupying the lands, using means of forgery in papers of British Pakistani businessman Nisar Ahmad Afzal.
The convicts, previously on bail, have been sent to Central Jail Adiala after the judgment.
The case of fraud was registered in November 2021 in Rawalpindi by Hamzah Afzal, of Edgbaston in Birmingham, and his father Nisar Afzal, of the fraud on their lands in Rawalpindi District’s Rajar Tehsil after officials of the land record of Revenue Estate – Aurangzeb Patwari, Malik Muhammad Safdar – criminally conspired to forge the land record and transfer it to three men with powerful connections – Almas Abbasi s/o Mohammad Aslam; Haq Nawaz Abbasi s/o Kudadad Khan; and Raja Shahid s/o Raja Bashir as beneficiaries of the embezzlement in connivance with each other and with officials of the land record.
The complainants had filed an application before the Director General (DG) of Anti-Corruption Lahore (Punjab).
The Anti-Corruption Lahore said in a forensic report prepared by Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) that it investigated the accused and established that the record of the land registry was tampered with signatures forged and additional pages added to the original land record in order to defraud the British Pakistani family.
The court was told that mutation of the land was not compared/ verified by Girdawar which is a prerequisite under the law and that “names of Almas, Haq Nawaz & Raja Shahid seems to be inserted subsequently” and “this mutation has not been entered in Roznamcha Waqiati”.
