The young boy, Ahmad, was handed over to the police by a shopkeeper — allegedly an accomplice of a swindler who had taken away two mobile phone sets from the shopkeeper promising to return with money in half an hour and leaving the boy there as security. As the swindler did not return, the shopkeeper handed the boy over to the police. As the police asked him about the real culprit, Ahmad is reported to have claimed that he was duped by a young man. The police did not buy the explanation and to extract truth they opted for their conventional technique of interrogation — physical torture.
Details of the torture are horrifying. Showing burns and torture marks on his body, young Ahmed says that the police made him sit on a heater and later “tied my arms with a rope and hanged me upside down, also clubbing me.”
The incident has attracted some pledges by the chief minister, the provincial police chief and other senior officials promising justice to the victim. An FIR has already been registered against nine cops while an ASI, Mohammad Saeed, has reportedly been arrested. But these are routine reactions to the frequent incidents of torture by personnel of law-enforcement agencies, especially the police.
A report released by the NCHR on February 13, while calling for legal check on police brutalities, reminded that a “law needs to emphasise that torture is criminal offence punishable with imprisonment”. But can it bring any change in the situation? Apparently not, unless there are drastic changes in the whole police system to reform the collective mindset of the force.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 21st, 2019.
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