Caught in the crossfire: Young bystander innocent victim of police criminality?

Student dies of bullet wounds; police accused of extortion.

PESHAWAR:

A college student was killed and a woman was injured when police opened fire on a car in the limits of Hashtnagri Police Station on Thursday evening, according to eyewitnesses and police sources. Locals believe the police may have been chasing the car to extort money from passengers.

A police official told The Express Tribune that the station’s rider squad was shot at by car riders during a chase. The squad retaliated, trapping a college student standing nearby in the crossfire. The official, however, denied that any woman had sustained injuries in the firing incident, adding that the riders managed to escape the scene.

The incident occurred in Nanakpura locality on GT Road. Locals said that the killed student was standing with a group of friends when he was caught in the crossfire. Usman, an eyewitness, told The Express Tribune that they were standing in the street, when a white car entered the alley with two raider squad personnel following it on a motorcycle.

“The police opened fire on the vehicle and a stray bullet struck Waqar,” he recollected. He said a police mobile chased the car after the firing, while the rider squad turned in another direction. Waqar was taken to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. He was a 3rd year student at Government College Peshawar. The injured woman was identified as Neelum Begum, aged 27. She was also taken to the Lady Reading Hospital.

Locals accused the police of extorting money from common people at the police checkpoint.

In their view, there was no justification for pestering people in the name of checking at this point.

Mohammad Qasim, a local, claimed that two police personnel were stationed round the clock at a place near Government High School Nanakpura, where they regularly extorted money from Afghans and other tribal people travelling in local transport vehicles. These vehicles ply a service road from Firdous Chowk to Haji Camp Bus Stand, instead of GT Road.

Locals believe that people in the car were probably trying to escape from the police for this reason and were fired at when they entered a side alley of a service road.

Sources said that police arrested the squad personnel, identified as Rab Nawaz and Naseer. They charged them under section 302 of Pakistan Penal Code for the murder of Waqar.

However, an official of the Hashtnagri Police Station declined from either confirming or denying this. He said police officials were presently trying to negotiate a resolution with the relatives of the slain.





Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2011.