Crime and punishment: No arrests made in killer cops case

Six policemen have been booked for the alleged murder of a suspect in a fake encounter

RAWALPINDI: The Saddar Bairooni Police have postponed’ the arrest of six policemen who have been booked for murder, citing the fact that the Homicide Investigation Unit (HIU) is still running an inquiry regarding the allegations.

City Police Officer Israr Ahmed Abbasi said on Tuesday that the police would not arrest the accused cops immediately.

He said that the investigators would first look into the details of the case, and if they found enough evidence against them, they would be duly arrested.

Saddar Bairooni police registered a murder case against six policemen, including a Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) official, on charges of kidnapping and murdering a man named Waheed Qureshi in a fake police encounter.

The murder case was registered on the complaint of Shamim Bibi, the widow of the deceased, after she petitioned a District and Sessions case. She told the court that her husband, who was wanted by the police in connection with six murders in Gulistan Colony, was kidnapped by the policemen and later killed in an alleged ’fake encounter’, within the limits of the Saddar Bairooni Police Station.

The CPO said that an inquiry had been launched into the allegations. “We will not arrest the booked cops but will look into the allegations first,” he said, adding that “no cop has gone to court for obtaining bail-before-arrest, as the police have postponed their arrest”.

The HIU of Saddar Bairooni is alleged to have previously let three cops off the hook in a similar case. In that instance, an SHO and two others were allegedly involved in the murder of one Abdul Haq during a fake encounter at Girja Road in 2015.

Meanwhile a 35-year-old man ‘committed’ suicide under unexplained circumstances in the Saddar Bairuni area of Rawalpindi on Tuesday.

According to the preliminary investigation, Amir was found hanging with a piece of cloth wrapped around his neck tied with the ceiling fan of his room.

The police shifted the body to the district headquarters hospital and later handed over to the family members after fulfilling medico-legal formalities. Police said that the reason behind the suicide could not be ascertained immediately.

The police have registered a case.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2016.