Police coerce man to strip for ‘frisking’

incident occurred in Naulakha area of the district

LAHORE: Police is brutal whether it is Karachi or Lahore as if killing innocent Naqeebullah Mehsud in a fake encounter was not enough to express their tainted image, another face of brutality of Police has emerged in Lahore.

In Lahore, a team of patrolling force, Police Response Unit (PRU), forced a man to remove his clothes on a road in broad daylight for “frisking” purpose. When the CCTV footage flashed on media, DIG Operations Dr Haider Ashraf suspended all the officials of PRU 07.

The incident occurred in Naulakha when police reportedly stopped a passerby. They asked for bribe. When the victim could not produce nazrana, they asked him stand still for checking. As physical frisking and abusing was not enough to meet their benchmark of insult police usually offers to citizens, they asked him to take off his clothes on a main for ‘proper checking’. A week ago, a CCTV footage in which policemen in Nishtar Colony were beating a citizen with a chittar. Few weeks ago, two constables had beaten up a rickshaw driver.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2018.