Burned alive: Relatives of accused suspect foul play in investigation

Say police was complicating matters; linking two unrelated cases.

ABBOTTABAD: The family members of those arrested on charges of burning a 16-year-old girl in Makol Payeen, Galiyat have accused the Abbottabad police of implicating their relatives in a fake case to protect the real culprits.

Tabassum Bibi, Anwar Bibi, Subedar (retd) Sardar Saleem, Shahzaman and Mehmood told The Express Tribune the police have blamed their relatives so as to evade criticism and pressure from the government.

They said the police have attributed the murder to the decision of a jirga that was never convened. The relatives added the 16-year-old deceased had nothing to do with the elopement of Iqra* from the same village.

“The victim and Iqra were neither class fellows nor friends,” Mehmood said. The police said the 16-year-old girl had facilitated Iqra’s elopement and a jirga had demanded she be killed as punishment. However, Mehmood insisted the matter was being deliberately linked to Iqra’s love marriage with Khalid*, a resident of Tupla village.

“If the tribe was against the elopement, they would have punished Iqra* for it rather than the girl who was set ablaze,” he said.

According to Mehmood, it is the culprits who are punished rather than their abettors or neighbours. Mehmood also said the police must expose the true murderers and avoid “grilling innocent villagers in the name of investigation”.

Sardar Saleem said, “Ill-equipped and ill-trained investigators have taken a traditional third-degree torture case to an entirely incorrect direction.”

He said those people who came forward to rescue the girl and informed the police about the incident were arrested and were being made to confess the crime forcibly.

The agitated family members of the accused also protested outside Abbottabad Press Club and DC’s office.

On April 29, charred body of a 16-year-old girl was found from a high-roof van in Makol Payeen village. Police arrested 15 villagers, including the mother of the victim. All the accused, except the mother of the deceased, were put on physical remand with a joint investigation team of the counter-terrorism department and police personnel till May 28.

Meanwhile, Galiyat DSP Jamilur Rehman rejected the allegation of the family members of the accused, saying, all of them were arrested after thorough investigation using modern techniques. He also denied all charges of torture.

(*Name changed to protect identity)

Published in The Express Tribune, May 22^nd, 2016.