Food official manhandled by town committee chairman for intercepting wheat stock.

UMERKOT -- Harassment and manhandling of a food department official by Samaro town committee chairman late on Saturday evening sent a wave of anger among food officials across the town. An emergency meeting of senior food officials was held on Sunday to condemn the incident.

It was gathered that food inspector Iftikhar Arain, along with a police team, intercepted a consignment of 1,200 wheat bags of 40-kg each while it was being transported by two trucks to some other district. The action was taken as part of the ongoing campaign against hoarding/illegal movement of wheat stocks which was causing an artificial shortage of the commodity and wheat flour in the province.

According to Mr Arain, when he impounded one truck-load of wheat and chased the other truck, Samaro town committee chairman, Rafique Ahmed Qaimkhani, who belonged to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), along with some other persons intervened and harassed him to deter him from discharging his official duty. 'Qaimkhani abused and held me hostage for some time and then slapped me when I did not agree to come to his terms,' alleged Mr Arain.

He said he intended to recover more than 14,000 other wheat bags hoarded in his area of operation to prevent the stocks from being shifted to some other district/province in violation of the relevant ban imposed by the provincial government.

Escorted by a police force, the officials recovered more than 1,00,000 wheat bags and sealed off the mills.

Reacting angrily to the incident, senior food officials held a meeting under the chairmanship of Mohammed Hussain Mahar to discuss the issue. Ghulam Nabi Soomro, Iftikhar Arain and other senior officials including heads of all procurement centres in the district attended the meeting.

The meeting condemned the town committee chairman's act of hooliganism as unacceptable. It said Qaimkhani's attempt of obstructing...