Death in custody: Seven cops booked for torturing man

RAWALPINDI:

Seven officials of the Wah Saddar police were booked for torturing a suspect to death.

The officials had taken Muhammad Yousaf, the deceased, into custody on Monday for his suspected involvement in the murder of a police constable.

A policeman at the station, asking not to be named, said four suspects shot Constable Niaz dead and injured Sharif on August 13 while they were patrolling in Gulberg, Wah.

The police believed Yousaf, a brick kiln worker and an Afghan national, was one of the attackers.  He was picked up on a tipoff by Sub-Inspector Muhammad Ilyas, ASI Manzoor Ahmed, ASI Muhammad Arshad and four constables. They brought him to the police lockup and allegedly started torturing him to get the names and addresses of his accomplices.

When his condition deteriorated, they took Yousaf to a private hospital, where he died. His body was taken to DHQ Hospital on Tuesday. The postmortem report is yet to be issued. However, senior police officials ordered the registration of an FIR against the seven policemen. None of the police officials had been arrested when this report was filed. DSP Raja Taifur and CPO Azhar Hameed were not available on their phones despite repeated attempts.

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