LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency(FIA)onMonday claimed to have arrested six retailers for allegedly deducting Rs1,500 from the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) amount meant for each beneficiary women at Kot Addu, for issuing SIM cards that are supposed to be provided free of cost to them.
According to the first information report (FIR) registered by the FIA’s Composite Circle in Dera Ghazi Khan, under sections 420 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, the arrests were made during a raid on the BISP’s Kot Addu office after the agency received complaints that retailers representing two cellular companies were demanding money from the beneficiaries visiting them to receive the financial assistance under the Benazir Kafalat Programme.
When the FIA team members conducted the raid, they found a large number of women waiting at the BISP office toreceive SIM cards.
According to the FIR, the beneficiaries told the investigators that they had been asked to pay Rs1,500 each to obtain SIM cards required for receiving the BISP payments, despite the programme’s standard operating procedures requiring the cards to be issued free of cost.
Two of the affected beneficiaries, Irshad Bibi and Rasheeda Mai, told the investigators that they had to pay the amount demanded by the retailers before receiving their SIM cards.
The FIA arrested six suspects--Zubair Aslam, Ishfaq, Altaf, Haji Muzzamil, Shahid Bilal and Mehtab Ahmed -and recovered SIM cards, biometric devices, beneficiaries’ identity cards and mobile phones from their possession.
An FIA spokesperson says the suspects have been booked on charges of cheating and abetment, while the investigation would also determine whether any officials of the BISP or the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) had facilitated the illegal practice.