Lower Mall police: Bail pleas rejected of cops who ‘tortured teen to death’

Inquiry found five policemen guilty of torture and accidental homicide.

LAHORE:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Sadiq Masood has dismissed the pre-arrest bail pleas of five policemen accused of torturing a teenager to death in illegal detention.

Lower Mall SHO Naveed Azam Chaudhry, Sub Inspectors Muhammad Ashraf and Syed Nasir Ali, and Assistant Sub Inspectors Ghulam Nabi and Muhammad Akbar had applied for pre-arrest bail five months ago, but their pleas were only decided yesterday after being passed on by several additional district and session judges.

The policemen appeared in the court on Wednesday morning, when the court heard arguments from both sides, but did not return in the afternoon to hear the verdict. Asif Atta, who is in charge of investigations at New Anarkali police station, said that he was yet to receive any court order for the arrest of the accused.

Atta said that the building housing Lower Mall police station was actually in the jurisdiction of New Anarkali police, so the case was registered at the latter police station.

According to an inquiry conducted by a senior police official, Tahir Naveed, 17, had been detained without his arrest being registered. Naveed was beaten so badly over the course of 10 days in detention that he suffered internal injuries and died of kidney failure, the inquiry report stated. The policemen then dumped his body at a shoe factory.

Dilshad Begum, the mother of the deceased, had initially registered a complaint against the five policemen at New Anarkali police station under Section 302 (murder) and 34 (conspiracy) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). However, the inquiry report stated that the policemen had not intended to kill Naveed, so they were charged under Sections 319 (negligent homicide) and 344 (illegal detention) of the PPC and Section 302 was removed.

The accused said in their bail pleas that they had been falsely implicated by local police officials and they had nothing to do with Naveed’s death. They claimed that the 17-year-old was a hardened criminal wanted in several cases.

The prosecution accused the policemen of running a private torture cell and extorting innocent people.

According to complainant Dilshad Begum, the mother of the victim, Lower Mall police had registered a murder case against her son on the say so of an Inspector Maqsood Gujjar, who lived in the same neighbourhood, because he had differences with Naveed.

She alleged that Gujjar had implicated her son in other false cases before, but he had been released as there was no evidence against him. She said that in March 2011, after a murder FIR was registered against Naveed, she took him to the police station herself.

The police inquiry report later cleared Inspector Gujjar of any wrongdoing.

Begum said in her complaint that her son was kept in detention for two months and he was tortured.

She said Naveed had eventually contacted his parents and told them that the police officials were demanding Rs500,000 to release him. She said that as they were arranging for the money, they heard that Naveed’s body had been found at a shoe factory.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2012.