Vehari district police on Friday arrested a 16-year-old boy for swindling a provincial assembly member out of Rs200,000 by posing as a woman.
A Burewala Saddar police spokesman said Amin Bhatti, a resident of Sadiq Town got the personal cell phone number of MPA Bilal Bhatti of PP-235 Vehari.
He said Amin first sent text messages to the MPA pretending to be a 32-year-old married woman Rehana Malik. Amin told him that ‘Rehana’ was from Lahore and was married in a landed family in Vehari.
He said they also talked over the phone.
According to the FIR registered against Amin under Sections 386 and 25-B of the Pakistan Penal Code on the application of the MPA’s manager Sagheer Bhatti, the boy had conned the MPA and received Rs200,000.
The FIR said the money was sent through easy paisa, mobile easy loads and bank transfers.
The police spokesman said they had talked for four months.
He said things came to an end after the MPA insisted on meeting ‘her.’ He said Amin told him that ‘she’ could not meet him because her family was very conservative.
He said the MPA finally got suspicious and handed the number to the police.
The MPA’ manager told police that the ‘lady’ used to talk for 10 to 12 hours a day.
Station House Officer Zubair Lodhi told The Express Tribune that the police traced the number to Amin in 72 hours. He said Amin was arrested in a raid. He said Amin had confessed. He said Amin had told them that the MPA had never visited his constituency after the general elections.
The boy claimed that he was avenging the “injustices done to his people.” He said the boy had complained that the MPA should be asked why he had urged a married woman to leave her husband.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2014.