Teen presented in court a week after detention

Ramna SHO says Abdul Rehman Khattak had been apprehended for carrying an unlicenced gun

ISLAMABAD: A teenager has been remanded in judicial custody by a local court on charges of carrying an unlicenced weapon after police in the federal capital presented him before the judge nearly a week after he was detained, his family claimed.

The family of 17-year-old Abdul Rehman Khattak told Additional District and Sessions Judge Sikandar Khan that the teenager had been detained by the police on January 17. Khattak’s family eventually learnt that he was being held by the Ramna police.

Subsequently, the family filed a petition in the court, through Riyasat Ali Azad, that Khattak has been detained for an extended period without being presented before a judge even though he is a minor.

At this, the court asked the bailiff to visit the police station and recover the teenager and present him before the court. However, when the bailiff visited the Ramna police station, he found that Khattak was not in the lockup.

But the next day, police presented the suspect in a local court and said that they had apprehended him for carrying an unlicenced weapon. Khattak’s father identified the teenager in court which then remanded the 17-year-old to the Adiyala Jail on judicial remand.

Azad contended that the police had allegedly threatened the detainee’s paternal uncle and lamented the city’s police force was allegedly involved in such illicit activities right under the nose of Inspector General (IG) of Islamabad Police Aamir Zulfiqar Khan.

Expressing his disdain for the alleged actions of the police force in the federal capital, he expressed concerns that if this was the attitude of cops towards citizens in the federal capital, then what will be happening in the rest of the country.

Maintaining that an innocent juvenile has been targeted, the lawyer said that they have registered a complaint against Ramna SHO Habibur Rehman and the ASI tasked with investigations in the case.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2020.