‘Absconder’ killed in police custody, finds judicial inquiry

Magistrate says there was no police encounter on July 23.

FAISALABAD:

A judicial inquiry on Wednesday declared an encounter that took place in Chak Jhumra police station jurisdiction as fake.

The inquiry was conducted by Civil Judge cum Judicial Magistrate Shakeel Ahmad Sipra.

The police had claimed to have killed an absconder Kashif in the encounter. CPO Bilal Siddique Kamyana had requested the District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Rasheed Qamar to order an inquiry into the incident. The DSJ had then appointed Sipra as the inquiry officer.

The inquiry officer recorded statements of several witnesses, relatives of the victim and police officials who allegedly took part in the encounter. The report says that the Chak Jhumra SHO Inspector Rana Mazharul Haq and other officials had failed to prove that there had been a chase or an exchange of fire, as was stated in the FIR registered. Kashif was already in police custody, the report states, when he was killed.

The police had claimed that they had killed Kashif and an accomplice in an encounter, which took place on the night of July 23. They had claimed that they had started following three suspects after they had snatched a motorcycle from near Paharang Drain.

SSP (Operations) Chaudhary Sadiq Dogar had also backed up the SHO’s version, saying that Haq had signalled a motorcycle with three people to pull over near a picket on Chiniot-Jhumra Road. The motorcyclists had opened fire instead and escaped. He said that a police team had chased the suspects, intercepted them and asked them to surrender. But the men continued to fire at the police, who were left with no choice but to return fire. One the men had been killed as a result of the retaliatory fire while his accomplices fled, Dogar said.

According to the police, Kashif was wanted for five cases of murder, dacoity and robbery. Kashif’s family had protested against the illegal killing and demanded a probe into the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2012.