PTI leader seeks case against police over ‘fake encounter’

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Laila Parveen, whose driver was killed along with four others in an alleged encounter in Gizri last week, has filed a petition against the police at a local court.

The petition, filed with the South district and sessions judge, maintains that a case should be registered against the police for engaging in staged encounters.

It adds that two women - Parveen's mother-in-law and sister-in-law - were detained for 15 hours, while the request for a second autopsy filed by the brother of the deceased driver Abbas, was not being received.

The petition moves the court to order the registration of a case against those responsible under charges of murder and terrorism.

Later, Parveen's counsel claimed outside the court that the investigation into the alleged encounter was not transparent, adding that it was the investigation officer's job to probe all aspects of the case instead of just those given in the FIR.

Accusing the IO of working to protect his colleagues in the police force, he added that the eyewitness accounts were not being recorded. He called for the inquiry to be carried out by an agency other than the police.

Meanwhile, Parveen said that even if Abbas was a criminal, it was wrong to detain him and kill him. "Our driver had contact with the other slain suspects," she stated. "But if a person is in contact with criminals, it does not mean he too should be considered a criminal and killed."

According to her, Abbas had been arrested by the police from her house before he was shot dead in what the cops claimed was an encounter with a gang of robbers.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2020.