Poor father forgives teenage son’s torturers

ISLAMABAD: Father of a poor teenage boy from district Rahim Yar Khan on Tuesday forgave the people who had brutally tortured his son.

Three people Mian Jalil, Athar and Mazhar had allegedly beaten a 13-year-old boy after accusing him of theft.

“They had poked the boy with hot iron rods and kept him under detention for many hours before police recovered him,” said a police official. Sabzi Mandi police had arrested two of the three accused, Athar and Azhar.

Athar had employed the teenage boy Muhammad Nadeem at his house while the boy’s elder brother was a worker at Athar’s workshop in sector F-10.

His wife accused Nadeem of stealing money and asked her husband to inquire about it from the boy. Later, the boy told the police that the woman had also participated in
the torture. Police registered cases against four people
including Athar’s wife, who had obtained bail-before-arrest.

On Tuesday, Nadeem’s father, who had come from Rahim Yar Khan, submitted before the court that he did not want to pursue a criminal case against the accused. He told the judge that the two parties had reached a compromise outside court.

On his request, the court dismissed the case, barring the police from any criminal proceeding against the accused who were under physical remand in police custody. Police said the two arrested accused Athar and Azhar will be released on Wednesday after receiving a formal letter from the court.

Police said both the parties were from a same village in Rahim Yar Khan. Munir was a poor farmer and it was unlikely that he would take any action against the accused, who were well-off people. Police said the exact reason behind the compromise, in which the father of the boy had pardoned the most brutal of the crimes, was not known. However, it was poverty and helplessness that might have made him do that, police feared.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2010.