Alleged drug trader subjected to ‘severe torture’ in Haripur

Malik Yasir claims that he was punished for testifying against police in a criminal case; police deny the charges

HARIPUR: Police subjected a man to severe torture before and after taking him into custody over alleged possession of narcotics in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Haripur city.

According to Malik Yasir, 28, he was on way to a neighbouring village on Thursday when three police personnel, two of them plain-clothed, intercepted him and beat him.

“They beat me so severely that I started bleeding from the nose and mouth. The police later drove me to a police station,” Yasir, who is hospitalised, told the media on Saturday.



“They [police] kept me detained and continued beating me intermittently throughout the night,” he added.

Yasir claimed that he was subjected to torture as he became a witness against an informant of police in a criminal case.

He also accused the law enforcement agency of taking away Rs40,000 from him which he was carrying at the time of arrest.

Yasir was later produced before a judicial magistrate followed by medical tests which revealed bruises on different parts of his body and urinary bleeding.

The victim’s lawyer subsequently moved an application in a district and sessions court and called for registering a criminal case against the police.

Malik Rehmat Khan, victim’s brother, also held the stance that the police beat Yasir for testifying against them, and later implicated him into a case of narcotics possession.



When approached, the Khanpur police station denied the charges of torture, claiming the victim suffered the injuries after falling from his motorbike during his bid to escape.

The police also accused Yasir of possessing 1,080 grammes of charas and being involved in trade of narcotics, adding that he misled the court to divert it from his wrongdoing.