Missing evidence: DIG told to investigate policemen

Conductor says he was falsely implicated for refusing free ride.

LAHORE:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Sohail Shafique on Monday directed the deputy inspector general of police (DIG) for investigations to personally investigate a complaint by a bus conductor that police officials falsely implicated him in a drugs case.

Petitioner Haq Nawaz, 64, through Advocate Mian Shahid Abbas, submitted that the Lorry Adda station house officer, Lorry Adda Sub Inspector Ashiq Ali and Investigation Officer SI Mian Muhammad Imtiaz had registered a false case against him alleging possession of drugs because he had refused to give their guests a free ride on the bus.

He said that on May 17, Ali sent five people to Lorry Adda with the message that they were his guests and should travel for free to Mirpurkhas. Nawaz said that he refused to entertain them. After a while, he said, several policemen turned up at the bus station, beat him up and dragged him to Lorry Adda police station. They then registered an FIR against him, claiming to have found 1 kilo and 10 grams of hashish on him.

The police said in the FIR that they had found the drugs when they stopped and searched Nawaz at a picket.

The police produced Nawaz before Judicial Magistrate Shahid Khokhar on May 19 seeking his physical remand. Nawaz moved an application for the case property the drugs allegedly confiscated from the bus conductor to be brought to court. The magistrate ordered the investigation officer in the case to do so, but he could not. The magistrate then wrote to the capital city police officer calling for an inquiry.

Advocate Abbas, who is also president of the Peoples Lawyers’ Forum, told The Express Tribune that Nawaz had been granted after-arrest bail for Rs100,000 by Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Hussain Sial on Monday.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2012.