Harassment continues: Lawyer kidnapped, tortured

Manzar Bashir was on his way to court when five persons kidnapped him.

RAWALPINDI:

Unknown persons abducted a lawyer and tortured him before throwing him by a roadside on Thursday.

Former secretary district bar association, Rawalpindi, Sardar Manzar Bashir, 50, was on his way to the court when five persons opened fire on his car near Rawalpindi Medical College and punctured its tyres.

“They got me off my car and kidnapped me at gunpoint and drove me to a house in their black Corolla car,” he said. “They started beating me with sticks,” he said.

The lawyer said that he could not identify the kidnappers as they had blindfolded him and tied his hands with a rope. Bashir said that he fell unconscious due to severe torture. “When I opened my eyes, I found myself on a bed in a hospital,” he said. Bashir said that two of the kidnappers were speaking Pashto.

Police found Bashir lying unconscious on Adiala Road and shifted him to the Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi.

“Currently I am not pursuing any high-profile case, but it seems that the lawyers are being harassed to stop us from carrying out our mission for the rule of law,” he said.

Doctors have shifted him to a ward after keeping him at the ICU for two hours.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2013.