More than a month after a station house officer, assistant sub inspector and 13 other police officers were suspended for allegedly torturing an elderly man to death, the investigation of the case is stalled and police appear to be suppressing evidence.
According to Haji Zakaria, the complainant in the case, the cops raided the house of his brother, 70-year-old Abdul Razzaq, in Kot Lakhpat on the night of October 11. The police took Abdul Razzaq, his two sons Javeed and Naveed, and their neighbour Kashif into custody. The next day, they dumped Razzaq, unconscious, outside the house. Razzaq died of his injuries four days after the incident on October 16 in General Hospital. The capital city police officer suspended the accused cops after a furore over the incident in the media.
However, with the media spotlight shifted away, the police are under no pressure to conduct a fair and thorough investigation.
The accused cops have not been arrested, nor have they attended a single days of proceedings of a judicial inquiry into the death at the Model Town courts.
Razzaq’s son Aurangzeb told The Express Tribune that he had been twice to Munshi Hospital with court orders granting him the right to copies of the autopsy report. However, he said, officials at the hospital had told him that they could not complete the autopsy report until the police had provided them signed and verified copies of documents from General Hospital indicating what treatment Razzaq received for his injuries.
On his last visit there on November 18, he said, a Munshi Hospital official wrote a letter to CCPO Ahmad Raza Tahir, the General Hospital medical superintendent and Kot Lakhpat police station asking for the documents. There has been no response to the letter so far, he said.
Aurangzeb said that he had recorded a phone call that ASI Asad Shehzad, one of the accused cops, had made to him apologising after his father’s death. The ASI said in the recording that SHO Khalid had beaten up Razzaq at the police station.
Background
Aurangzeb said that the family’s run-ins with the police began in August after he had told a friend of his to stop peddling drugs in the neighbourhood. That ‘friend’ shot at him, Aurangzeb said, but missed and accidentally shot two bystanders, killing a woman and injuring her daughter.
The family of the victims registered a complaint against three attackers, but the police later convinced them to pardon the shooter for his ‘mistake’ and to implicate Aurangzeb in the FIR. He said that the police then used the FIR to try and extort Rs100,000 from the family.
He said that an FIR lodged against Razzaq and his sons Javeed and Naveed, in which they are accused of carrying alcohol and heroine, was used to pick up his father. He said that an ASI Asad Shehzad had called him on his mobile and asked for forgiveness after his father’s death.
He said that the ASI spoke during the phone call, of which Aurangzeb says he has an audio recording, about how SHO Khalid Sanaullah had first thrashed Razzaq in his house and later at the police station. Asad also said that the FIR lodged against Razzaq had been tampered with on October 17, the day after his death, to include the ASI’s name as the complainant.
On November 22, The Express Tribune contacted Model Town SP (Investigation) Nasir Mukhtar to ask why the investigation of the case was not progressing. Mukhtar said that he was unaware of the case as he had only taken charge of his office a few days ago, but he would be looking at it soon.
This correspondent contacted SP Mukhtar again on November 29. The SP said that he did not know about the case as he was very busy with other work.
He again promised to look into the matter “soon”. He said he suspected that the accused police officials had obtained pre-arrest bail.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2011.
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