Man handed down five-year imprisonment in extortion case

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Wednesday sentenced an accused person to five years in prison after he was found guilty of extorting money from a citizen.

The ATC-XX judge also ordered the convict, Ahmed Qureshi, to pay a fine of Rs25,000, which, in case of default, would be turned into additional six-month imprisonment. According to the prosecutor, Iqbal Meo, Qureshi was arrested from near the Civic Centre on November 2, 2019, after he had extorted money from the complainant, Nadeem Khan.

Khan had lodged an FIR with police, claiming that he had been receiving calls from unidentified persons demanding money from him and threatening with dire consequences in case of non-payment.

The prosecutor said a caller identified himself as Mubashir Lodhi and asked Khan to bring Rs500,000 at the main gate of the Sindh Building Control Authority. After this call, the complainant informed police who directed him to arrange ten currency notes of Rs5,000 denomination and mark them with a colour.

Khan went to the said place where a man on a motorcycle had come to collect the money. As soon as the motorcyclist received the envelope, police intercepted and took him into custody. Police found a mobile phone on the accused, which contained both the SIMs used to make the extortion calls.

Qureshi was sent to prison while three months later, the co-accused Lodhi appeared before the court to seek pre-arrest bail, which was approved. Both the accused claimed innocence and were thereby charged to be tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) which last for around a year.

Pronouncing the verdict, the judge observed that he carefully went through the evidence produced against Qureshi and did not find any major inconsistency and flaws in them. He added that the prosecution could not prove charges against Lodhi; therefore, his defence plea carried more weight than the charge sheet.

The judge remanded back Qureshi to prison to serve out his remaining sentence and ordered the authorities to release the surety kept against Lodhi’s bail as he had been acquitted of the charge.

The case was registered under the sections 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with the section 7 of the ATA at the Nazimabad police station.