Lawyers thrash sub-inspector for handcuffing another lawyer

SI said the lawyer was a declared proclaimed offender in a 2004 case.

LAHORE:

A group of some 20 lawyers thrashed a sub-inspector at the Sessions Court on Friday for trying to arrest one of their colleagues from near the court.

They then dragged him to Advocate Amjad Saeed’s chamber and later to the Bar Room, where they beat him some more.

According to the detail, Sub Inspector Muhammad Aslam of Sarwar Road police station had handcuffed Advocate Zafran Bukhari in the Baba Ground parking lot, when the latter was leaving the court after a hearing of a case in which he was the petitioner.

Sub Inspector Aslam, the investigation officer in the case, was accompanied by Sub Inspector Abdul Ghafoor and a constable. They stopped Advocate Bukhari, told him he was a proclaimed offender in a cheque fraud case filed against him in Saddar police station in Chiniot in 2004.

The lawyer demanded to be shown the arrest warrants. He was told that he would see it at the police station. The lawyer then started shouting for help, attracting a group of lawyers standing nearby. As the lawyers approached, SI Ghafoor and the constable slipped away, unnoticed.

The lawyers, on his failure to produce arrest warrants, beat the SI and took him to Advocate Saeed’s chamber, where he was told to undo the handcuffs. SI Aslam refused to do so and was again beaten. In the end, he unlocked the cuffs.

He was then taken to the Bar Room of the Sessions Court, where he remained until Islampura police Deputy Superintendent Zahid Pervez and Station House Office Idrees Qureshi arrived to rescue him.

SI Aslam told the officers that he had received information that Advocate Bukhari was a proclaimed offender in a case in Chiniot.

He said he had verified the information before he arrested the lawyer.

The DSP and the SHO told him that arresting the lawyer in that case was not his responsibility but that of the Chinoit Saddar police.

They were later joined by Lahore Bar Association Vice Presidents Rana Sajid Bashir and Faiz Khokhar, who resolved the matter.

Sub Inspector Aslam later told The Tribune that the SHO’s remarks at him were insulting.

He said he had evidence that Advocate Bukhari was an absconder. He said it was lawful for any police officer to arrest an absconder regardless of where the complaint was filed.

Talking to The Express Tribune Advocate Bukhari alleged that the sub inspector had tried to arrest him at the behest of Muhammad Imran, the respondent in the cheque fraud case he was prosecuting.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2012.