Fake encounter: IG told to produce respondents by April 17

Petitioner says police killed her brothers because her family couldn’t ‘pay up’.

LAHORE:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Javedul Hassan Chishti on Friday issued a reminder to the inspector general (IG) of police on producing 19 police officers, including a deputy superintendent, and 35 other police officers allegedly involved in killing two men in a fake encounter.

At a previous hearing, the judge had directed the Sheikhupura district police officer to withhold the salaries of the respondents. Later, the counsel for the complainant informed the court that despite the order, the DPO had not withheld the salaries. The judge had then written to the IG directing him to produce the respondents in court on March 30.

However, no one was produced on Friday. The judge then gave the IG till April 17 to produce the respondents in court.

The judge is hearing the petition filed by Kehkashan Begum, sister of the two men allegedly killed in a shootout. She said her brothers were killed in a fake encounter because her family could not fulfil the police’s demand for Rs1 million.

She said that on April 13, 2009, the DSP along with some policemen had surrounded her house. Some of them, she said, had entered the house and taken away her brothers, Sabir and Abrar, and two women of the family with them. They had also taken away their mobile phones, jewellery, a wrist watch and Rs30,000, she said.

Later, she said, the officers released the women but took her brothers to Khanqah Dogran. She said the officials demanded Rs1 million from her family and threatened to kill the men if the money was not paid.

She said her family could not arrange the amount. Her brothers were killed on April 25. She said the officers made it look like an encounter and registered a false case at Khanqah Dogran police station. She said that an anti-terrorism court had declared the encounter a fake.

She requested the court to register cases against the accused.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2012.