ISLAMABAD: It has been revealed that fake joint teams consisting of fake officers of the FBR and Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority and police officials have been conducting fake raids on business centers and harassing traders.
According to the affected shopkeepers in Karachi’s famous business center Jodia Bazaar have written a letter to the Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) requesting an inquiry into the matter.
According to the letter available the affected trader named Sohail Qadri of Jodia Bazaar in Karachi has written a letter to the Chairman FBR in which it is said that he has been trading in Jodia Bazaar for more than a decade. On January 31, at around 4 pm, ten to twelve people raided his shop, started throwing and damaging the products in the shop and started demanding production certificates of the items in the shop and said that there is information about you that you are selling unregistered items.
When pressed, they presented themselves as officers of FBR and PSQCA, but when asked for their official cards, instead of showing them, they started threatening me. The letter further states that three of the officers who came to their shop were policemen who were posing as officers from Mitha Dar Police Station. These men threw and damaged the products in my shop without any prior notice, warrant or legal permission. Moreover, they displayed extremely unprofessional behavior and harassed me using the names of two big institutions, FBR and PSQCA, and threatened to take action against me.
The letter states that despite my repeated requests and insistence, they neither revealed their full identity nor presented any written orders or legal documents, which is completely illegal and tantamount to misuse of authority, which led me to believe and even strongly suspect that the said persons were using the names of government institutions in a fictitious manner and were trying to defame the institutions through this act.
The letter further states that in this regard, I would also like to draw attention to this important matter that if this action had really been taken by a government institution, then formal identification, written orders and legal procedures would have been adopted for it, which was absolutely not present in this incident. He further says that after the incident, he also went to the concerned police station where he was informed about the entire situation.
During this time, it was found that this action had been taken by his business competitor, so I would like to draw the attention of the Chairman FBR to this important matter as well.
He has alleged in the letter that the authority that a person, Asif Majeed, is allegedly using in the name of Kashif Zia has come to my knowledge that he himself is involved in the investigation of sales tax evasion worth crores of rupees under the jurisdiction of national institutions FBR and PSQCA. The said matters are currently being investigated by RTO Lahore and INI Peshawar. Therefore, I request that keeping in mind all the above facts and evidence, an impartial and strict investigation and investigation be conducted into this matter and legal action be taken for the crime of misuse of the name of government institutions and harassment.
On the other hand, FBR and PSQCA officials have denied any kind of joint team operations and PSQCA has also started investigating the matter.