Four police officials including an Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) of Sammundari police ruthlessly tortured a tea-stall owner, his son and a waiter for a delay in serving tea to the Police Station on Monday.
According to eyewitnesses, ASI Muhammad Ameen and three constables, including Ashfaq Husain took Muhammad Yaqoob, the owner of a tea-stall, his son and a waiter from their shop on Gojra Road and beat them up outside the police station. Eyewitnesses said the ASI allegedly tortured Yaqoob, his son and a waiter in the police station and then threw them outside.
“They kept screaming at the men for being late in serving them the tea. Yaqoob protested that he had some customers but they kept beating him,” said an eyewitness Maqbool.
(Read: Control and confession by torture)
Police officials alleged that Yaqoob and his staff had insulted them after they asked why the tea wasn’t served on time and two inspectors said that the men ‘deserved a beating so the tea would be served on time from now on’. “From now on they will make sure we get our tea on time. They had delayed it for nearly half an hour and we had to send people out to get them to deliver the tea,” said an inspector.
After beating the men, Yaqoob and his staff put them in police lockup for hours. Local residents protested saying that police officials had tortured the men in lock up. “They took them in and beat them while they were tied up. It was all because they served their customers before the police,” said a customer Malik Pasha.
On hearing about the incident, a number of locals and shopkeepers surrounded the police station and chanted slogans against the police atrocities.
Yaqoob has lodged a complaint before the Sammundari DSP who said that he would order an inquiry into the incident.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2011.
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