Policemen arrested for beating five-year-old in Quetta

QUETTA:

Two policemen have been arrested for torturing a five-year-old boy at Quetta’s Pashtoonabad police station after a video of the torture made rounds on social media platforms and caused a public outcry.

In the video two policemen could be seen beating and catching the minor boy from his hair and ears inside the police station.

“We have arrested the two policemen and locked them up at the same police station,” Ghulam Azfar, the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Quetta told a news conference on Friday evening.

FIR would also be registered against the policemen involved in torturing the minor boy, he said.

Chief Minister Balochistan, Mir Quddus Bizenjo also took notice of the incident and ordered the police to probe the tragic incident. The SSP said the incident had happened on July 1st, 2021. The father and his son had allegedly stolen a mobile phone from a shopkeeper. “This was an inhuman act on the part of these two policemen,” the Balochistan Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohsin Hassan Butt told The Express Tribune.

There is no place for such policemen in the department, Butt said.

General public and social media activists strongly criticized police for beating a minor boy after the video went viral on social media, forcing the government to take action.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2022.