Labourer’s death: Construction company security officials arrested

They are accused of torturing two labourers, one of whom died.

ISLAMABAD:

The capital police have arrested two security officials of a private construction company on charges of torturing to death a labourer, police sources said.

The Sihala police registered a murder case against Security In-charge Captain (retd) Shahbaz and Security Supervisor Nazir Ahmed and arrested them late Saturday night.

The case was registered on the complaint of Arfaq, who narrated the story of their detention and torture at the hands of the company’s security staff.

Police said the duo had not only supervised the torture, but actively participated in it.

Arfaq told the police that he and Zohaib were sleeping in a tent near the construction site when the security staff picked them up and took them to the site office.

“They kept on kicking and punching us for hours. Then they used iron rods on us and did not stop till Zohaib fell unconscious,” the police quoted the injured labourer, Muhammad Arfaq, as saying. He was tortured along with his colleague, Muhammad Zohaib, by Safari Construction Company’s security staff. The company is owned by Bahria Town.

While Arfaq was lucky enough to survive, Zohaib could not stand the torture and was pronounced dead by doctors at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), where they were sent after the self-proclaimed ‘investigators’ realised that one of them was no longer responding to the beating.

Zohaib, 23, a resident of Azad Kashmir, worked with Arfaq as labourers at the construction site along Grand Trunk (GT) Road near Bahria Town Phase-VIII.

“They were kicking and punching us without even telling us what we had done,” Arfaq told the police. The security staff supervised by Shahbaz and Nazir blamed the labourers for the theft of raw iron construction materials from the site.

However, the boys denied a role in, or even knowledge of the theft, after which they were beaten with iron rods.

“It was not clear if the boys were involved in the theft, but instead of taking the matter to the police, the two security officials took it into their own hands,” said the Sihala Police Station House Officer (SHO).

He said the deceased labourer was hit in the head and chest with an iron rod, which proved fatal.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2012.