A man on Wednesday night set himself on fire in the Mandra Police Station lockup, police said. The guard on duty, however, doused the fire before it could seriously harm him.
The 45-year-old Sadaqat Hussain, arrested on theft charges, was shifted to the Holy Family Hospital’s burn unit on Thursday. His condition is said to be out of danger. He suffered from “minor” burns, according to the doctors on duty.
The police said Sadaqat attempted to set himself on fire around midnight with a matchstick and they have registered a case of attempted suicide against him.
A Mandra police official said Sadaqat is a proclaimed offender and was wanted in a theft case registered in March. He was arrested seven days ago and was being interrogated, the official said.
The victim had complained of being tortured and was on hunger strike for two days, the official added.
Other police officials, however, denied the allegations.
Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) Abrar Ahmed, investigating the incident, said Sadaqat seemed under stress and mentally unstable. Sadaqat, he said, was in transitory custody of the Mandra police, as he could not be sent to Adiala Jail after being put on judicial remand by a Gujar Khan court.
Gujar Khan Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Saba Sattar backed this claim. She said when the accused was not in police custody, the question of torture “does not even arise”.
She said if Sadaqat was being tortured he would have complained about it when he was produced before a judicial magistrate in Gujar Khan on Thursday. If he had, the court would have initiated an inquiry into the matter and ordered a medical examination of the suspect, she said.
She added that other suspects in the lockup had said that Sadaqat was stressed for “being arrested in the theft case”.
City Police Officer Azhar Hameed Khokhar said he will investigate how a matchbox ended up in the lockup and the policemen found responsible for the negligence will be penalised.
The Mandra police were also accused of torturing to death a prisoner back in September. An ASI and three constables were booked when a 35-year-old suspect died in their custody. The suspect in that case, too, was tracked down in a theft case. A stolen mobile phone had been traced to him. All four policemen are on bail.
Before that, seven policemen of Wah Saddar Police were booked for torturing an Afghan national, wanted in the murder of a policeman, to death.
More recently, on September 29, a man died of heart failure while in the custody of the Islamabad police. There were torture marks on his feet and back, according to an autopsy report. The SP, ASP and SHO of the Industrial area police were nominated in the FIR. The ASP is currently on bail, while the rest are in jail.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 9th, 2012.
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