Excise official accused of bribery, torture

An Additional Station House Officer (SHO) of the Excise Police Station Abbottabad has been booked on allegations of demanding a bribe of Rs1.5 million and unlawfully detaining and torturing residents of Peshawar, following the intervention of senior authorities in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

The Excise Department has also suspended the accused officer, Sub-Inspector Naseem Khan, and initiated a departmental inquiry.

Official sources said the case had been registered on the complaint of Imran Afridi, son of Haji Yousuf Jan and a resident of Peshawar.

In the First Information Report (FIR), the complainant stated that on June 1, 2026, he was travelling to Naran with several companions, including Naik Muhammad, Inamullah, Ayazul and Kamran, when they were stopped near Khokhar Mira in Abbottabad district on the Hazara Motorway by approximately 10 men in official uniforms.

The complainant alleged that the men, identifying themselves as excise officials, forcibly removed him from his Honda Civic and placed him in another vehicle before taking him to a nearby restaurant. There, they allegedly subjected him and his companions to verbal abuse, confiscated their mobile phones, seized cash in their possession and demanded a bribe of Rs1.5m.

The FIR further states that when the alleged demand was not met by midnight, the group was taken to the Excise Police Station, where they were allegedly beaten with sticks and unlawfully detained.