Fraudsters awarded rigorous imprisonment in land scam case

RAWALPINDI: In a landmark judgment, a District and Sessions Judge of the Anti-Corruption Rawalpindi Court has sentenced four individuals, including two revenue officials, to a total of 96 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs5.8 million for their involvement in cheating, manipulation, and fraudulent ownership papers forgery against a British-Pakistani family.

The accused, Aurangzeb Patwari, Malik Muhammad Safdar, Muhammad Almas Abbasi, Haq Nawaz Abbasi, and Raja Shahid Ahmed, were found guilty of fraudulently occupying the lands of British Pakistani businessman Nisar Ahmad Afzal by using fraudulent means of forgery in papers. The convicts, who were previously on bail, have been sent to Central Jail Adiyala.

The case was registered in November 2021 by Hamzah Afzal, son of Nisar Afzal, who alleged that officials of the land record of Revenue Estate, including Aurangzeb Patwari and Malik Muhammad Safdar, criminally conspired to forge the land record and transfer it to three men with powerful connections – Almas Abbasi, Haq Nawaz Abbasi, and Raja Shahid Ahmed.

A forensic report prepared by the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) established that the record of the land registry was tampered with, signatures forged, and additional pages added to the original land record in order to defraud the British Pakistani family. The court was told that the mutation of the land was not compared/verified by Girdawar, which is a prerequisite under the law.

The accused initially denied any involvement in the forgery scheme, but the forensic investigation proved they were involved in tampering with papers, fraud, and manipulation to snatch the expensive piece of land worth around three billion Pakistani Rupees (approximately £10 million).

Anti-Corruption Court Special Judge Ali Nawaz said it was proven beyond any doubt that the accused had manipulated and forged the papers to commit a crime against overseas Pakistani Nisar Afzal and his family. The judge sentenced all the accused for 96 years in total on several counts each of criminal misconduct, forgery, fraud, alteration, and using forged documents to make gains.

The judgment noted that the accused had committed cheating, fraud, manipulation, and prepared fake documents with the purpose and intention to get wrongful loss to the complainant and unlawful gain for them. The judge also ruled that Nisar Afzal has the option to initiate criminal proceedings against the convicted and can claim damages under the relevant law in the civil court.

The judge ruled: “I am of the considered view that the accused persons had committed cheating, fraud, manipulation, prepared fake documents with the purpose and intention to get wrongful loss to the complainant and unlawful gain for them.”

Nisar Afzal, the victim of the fraud, expressed relief that justice has been done, stating that this was a case of financial terrorism. He emphasized that the accused were proven to be cheaters, liars, and scammers during the investigation and the trial, but his time and resources were wasted for several years to expose the fraud.

Nisar Afzal said in a statement: “I am relieved that finally justice has been done. This was a case of financial terrorism. At the trial, we established through a record of transactions that I owned the land through completely rightful means. The accused were proven to be cheaters, liars and scammers during the investigation and the trial but my time and resources were wasted for several years to expose the fraud.

It is pertinent to mention here that last year Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped a mortgage fraud case after failing to establish enough evidence to prosecute him.