Srinagar: Srinagar police solved a high profile forgery case within days even before the lodgment of a formal FIR. Police has identified the culprit who has sought unconditional apology from the complainant.
Joint director Information Kashmir had last week received a letter, apparently from the president of Jammu and Kashmir Press Association, an amalgam of the owners of local newspapers, wherein verification of many publications was sought. The letter written in broken English with grammatical errors wanted Govt. advertisements stopped to as many as 41 publications as ,as per the letter, they were resorting to abuse of copy right and had “worst kind of printing standard” and “below poor regularity”.
Written on the letter head of Kashmir Press Association the letter bore the signatures of the president of association Ghulam Hassan Kaloo. The addressee officer called the files of all the publications mentioned in the letter and started verifying the complaints however the matter took a dramatic turn when Kaloo feigned ignorance about the matter. He denied having written any such letter and along with other members approached police station Kothi Bagh with the request to investigate the matter.
Sources said that since the letter had come as a registered post, it was traced to have been posted from General Post Office (GPO) Srinagar. “Police straight away went to GPO and checked the CCTV footage from which the culprit was identified” said a source and added that “police called Press association members who watched the footage and identified the culprit who himself is the owner of more than one publications”.
Police has called the man for questioning however he avoided and meanwhile went to the complainant Kaloo’s residence along with his mother and sought unconditional apology. A source said “he fell on feet of Kaloo Shb and wept like anything while his mother too begged for forgiveness, thereafter mother son duo went to another editor, Muhammad Iqbal’s, home and requested for withdrawal of the complaint”.
An active member of Press Association Mukhtar Wani said that they are meeting on Thursday to discuss the matter further. He said that both the editors, the man met, have declined to withdraw the complaint without taking all the members on board.