Family protests death from police torture

The protesters placed the man’s body at Zila Council Chowk and chanted slogans against the police.

FAISALABAD:

Several people from the Lundianwala area on Wednesday staged a protest demonstration against the police for allegedly torturing to death a man in their custody.

The protesters, most of them women, placed the man’s body at Zila Council Chowk and chanted slogans against the police.

Zubair Ali, one of the protesters, told The Express Tribune that Muhammad Danish, a resident of Syed Wala’s Akbar Shah village, had been taken into police custody five days day ago in a murder case. “Lundianwala police used torture during the interrogation and later threw him in front of his house,” Ali said.

Danish was taken to Jaranwala tehsil headquarters hospital in a serious condition. The doctors there referred him to Allied Hospital in Faisalabad where he succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday night. “Doctors said that his lungs had been damaged from the torture,” Ali said. The protesters staged a sit-in in front of the city police officer’s office and demanded immediate action against Sub Inspector Muhammad Abbas Bhatti and his colleagues who they said had arrested and tortured Danish.Operations SSP Ghulam Mubasshar Mekan visited the demonstration and told the protesters to file a complaint against SI Bhatti after the post mortem examination was conducted. “We will take strict action against the policemen responsible if the medical report proves that Danish died from police torture,” he said.

When contacted, Lundianwala SHO Malik Muhammad Hussain said that Danish had suffered from high blood pressure.

“We took him into custody in a murder case, but his blood pressure shot up,” The SHO said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd, 2013.