A case has been registered against a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader in Bhakkar district for demanding protection money at gunpoint, police said on Saturday.
Police said the complainant, Deputy Director Muhammad Khalid Hanif, an audit officer at the Bhakkar Town Municipal Authority had told them that PTI leader Abu Bakar Niazi had threatened him and demanded money at gun point.
Hanif said Niazi visited his office on Friday and asked that he be allowed to place advertising billboards in the district. Hanif said when he told him that he should get in touch with the district officer and the Inspection Supervision Department, Niazi demanded that he be paid 20 per cent shares of all amounts he received.
“He took out a gun and threatened that this would be our last meeting if I did not follow his instructions,” he said.
District Police Officer Sarfraz Falki told the media that an FIR had been registered against Niazi with the City police. He said a police team had been constituted to arrest the suspect.
Abu Bakar Niazi’s mobile phones were switched off when The Express Tribune tried to contact him.
Nisar Hussain, the PTI District Action Committee Chairman told The Express Tribune that the party would look into the case.
He said Niazi would be sacked from the party if found guilty. “I have taken the matter… recommendations have been forwarded to suspend his member ship till the result of the investigations,” he said.
Niazi is reportedly planning to contest local government election. He joined the PTI in April, 2012, after he left the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 24th, 2013.