‘Police brutality’: Victim seeks medical examination

The court had ignored his earlier plea, asking the DPO to submit a report.

HARIPUR:

An amputee appealed a magistrate on Friday to order for a medical examination to determine whether he was tortured by the police.

Amir Mehmood, 28, whose one leg was amputated after an accident, told media that he was arrested along with a dozen of his customers from his snooker club on charges of gambling.

He said that Station House Officer (SHO) Bashir Ahmed and Sub Inspector (ASI) Sajid Farooq subjected him to “severe torture”. “They beat me with bamboo sticks and made me stand on one leg for hours on end,” he said.

He added that the officials also tortured him mentally, by depriving him of food, not allowing him to sleep or contact his family.

He showed media the torture signs on his back and lower limbs. Mehmood had moved the judicial magistrate seeking a medical checkup to prove that he was subjected to custodial abuse.

A human rights lawyer Khurshid Azhar represented the complainant. However, instead of ordering the medical examination, the magistrate forwarded the complaint to the District Police Officer, seeking comments and a detailed report.

Amir also lodged his complaint with the District Public Safety and Police Complaint Commission Haripur Chairman Malik Khaliqdad, who ordered inquiry into the case. Khurshid maintained that there is no torture-specific law in the country and the only section that could take a violator to justice is 337-K of the Pakistan Penal Code (causing hurt to extort confession, or to compel restoration of property).

Meanwhile, Adeel Ahmed, an official of Human Development Organisation, a Hazara-based NGO working for prevention and rehabilitation of torture survivors, pledged his support for Mehmood.

He condemned the police brutality and demanded inquiry into the case. He reiterated that the government must respect the international commitment that it made while ratifying the United Nations Convention Against Torture and criminalise torture, as a means to end custodial abuse once and for all.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2012.