Jan 10, 2014
LAHORE: The Cantonment division police claimed on Thursday to have arrested three alleged extortionists and seized from them several SIMs, a cell phone and a weapon.
The suspects confessed to have been demanding extortion from two businessmen and committing firing on them to harass them for the last one month or so.
Cantonment SP (Operations) Umer Riaz said Qaiser Bashir Butt, who owns a shoe factory and a banquet hall in Manawan, had complained to North Cantonment police a month ago that unknown people had demanded Rs500,000 from him and hurled life threats at him.
He said some unknown persons opened fire on the car of Qaiser of the DHA in Harbanspura police limits a few days back. The victim, who escaped unhurt, got registered a case.
The SP said another businessman, Hafiz Ghulam Mustafa, of Ghaziabad also lodged a complaint with the Batapur police that unknown people had phoned him and demanded Rs500,000 and hurled life threats at him in case of non-compliance.
Mustafa, who deals in construction material, started traveling by bus instead of his car to avoid chase by suspects. On Jan 1, he was travelling on a bus when unidentified people fired at the vehicle on Ring Road and fled.
A case was lodged with the local police.
Riaz said the police traced suspects with the help of the cell phone tracking facility, adding the suspects used one cell phone and different SIMs to communicate with both victims.
Police formally arrested Qamar Abbas of Batapur and his two accomplices, Irfan alias Saba and Ali Husain, while a search was on for two others, Farooq and Sajid.
Farooq Bashir told Dawn his brother, Qaiser, had first received a call in the last week of November and the suspects kept calling him on his wife’s cell phone.
He said police investigations revealed that Sajid of Manawan, who was an ex-employee of Qaiser, was involved in the incident.
He said Sajid hired the services of Qamar Abbas.
(Daily Dawn)
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