Cops penalised for harassing tourist

Police authorities suspended from service three policemen on charges of engaging in inappropriate conversation with a foreign female biker in Battagram on Saturday.

According to sources, the incident took place on Saturday when the female biker was passing through Batgram district in the Hazara Division.

The officers stopped her on the way and began asking unusual and inappropriate questions. Unbeknown to them, the camera fitted inside the woman's helmet recorded the entire exchange, which later went viral on social media.

Following public outrage over the video, senior police officials took swift action, suspending the three officials and initiating departmental proceedings against them.

Earlier, in August 2023, a foreign couple alleged that police in the Jamrud area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Khyber district harassed them - a claim that the authorities rejected, terming it "fake propaganda".

Slava Skolaniya, a Russian man who was in Pakistan for tourism with his wife, said: "We were travelling in Khyber's Jamrud when we were intercepted by police personnel who questioned us aggressively and ordered us to not go ahead from there onwards." The Russian tourist had said the police asked for documents, which were shown to them. Despite this, he said the police shouted at them in front of the public and forced them not to proceed.