Robbery: Police accused of threatening complainant

Garden Town police station officials allegedly refused to register a robbery complaint.

LAHORE: Some Garden Town police station officials allegedly refused on Monday to register a robbery complaint.

Pharmacist, Malik Mohammad Ashraf, told The Exprress Tribune that when he went to register a case at the police station, the police officials present there refused to register an FIR challenging him to prove that the robbery had indeed taken place.

He said that instead of filing his statement, they told him to go away and install CCTV cameras at his pharmacy and hire a security guard.

He alleged that the police even threatened to lodge an FIR against him if he continued to ‘bother’ them. The police on the other hand denied the allegations. Malik Amir Iqbal, the Garden Town SHO, said that Ashraf was not interested in an FIR.

Ashraf said that robbers entered his pharmacy on January 2 and took away Rs30,000,  mobile phones, a computer and a few cartons of shampoo bottles. According to Ashraf, his two brothers were held at gunpoint during the robbery.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2011.