Misusing power: SHO accused of torturing man to death

Arain beaten up after he refused to bribe police officers and later died from heart attack

SUKKUR: Shikarpur police have yet to arrest Rustam police station SHO and other officers for torturing a man, who later suffered a heart attack and died.

Four days ago, former union council naib nazim Rustam Abdul Ghaffar Arain, resident of Rustam Town, went to the police station to lodge an FIR against Ali Ahmed Mahar, who owed him Rs600,000. Mahar had given Ghaffar a cheque worth Rs400,000 which bounced back.

However, Rustam police station SHO Qamaruddin Panhwar demanded bribe of Rs200,000 to assist Ghaffar in getting his money back from Mahar. Ghaffar refused to pay such a hefty amount and quarrelled with Panhwar.



After this, the SHO and his subordinate staff started beating Ghaffar, even though his 12-year-old son, Saad Arain, kept on appealing them to stop. When Ghaffar's condition started worsening, the SHO let him go. Ghaffar suffered a heart attack after he came back home and died on his way to the hospital. The post-mortem was carried out in Chak hospital, after which body was handed over to the relatives.

Shikarpur SSP Umer Tufail confirmed the incident but denied that the man was tortured by the police.

Ghaffar was in perfect condition when he left the police station. However, he was angry with the state of affairs therefore his blood pressure might have shot up, which resulted in a heart attack, he suggested. "Despite this we have lodged a FIR against the police officials and are investigating the case," he added.

The police have registered a case against SHO Qamaruddin Panhwar, head constable Rafiq Panhwar, constables Shoukat Chandio, Altaf Kalhoro and Ghulam Ali, but no arrest has been made yet.

All Pakistan Anjuman Arainiyan chief patron Abdul Majeed Arain said that Ghaffar had gone to police to report fraud. However, the police demanded bribes to investigate the case. At first, Ghaffar accepted the demand but later refused to pay such a huge amount. This was the actual reason which angered the SHO, who resorted to torture, explained Majeed.

The police were not willing to register FIR against the culprits but due to the intervention of food minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, former Shikarpur district nazim Arif Mahar and General (retd) Ghulam Mustafa, the case was lodged, said Majeed.

He demanded the Sindh IG to order an impartial inquiry into the death of Ghaffar, so as to bring the real culprits to justice. "The man was killed because he refused to pay bribe," he said.

Panhwar has involved some influential figures of the district and is pressurising the victim's family to resolve the matter out of court, claimed a Shikarpur-based journalist requesting anonymity. So far the family is refusing, but only time will tell how long the family will be able to withstand the pressure, he added.

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