Tortured to death: Two police officials denied pre-arrest bail

PU guard accused of theft died of wounds from torture in custody, says brother.

LAHORE:

An additional district and sessions judge has dismissed the pre-arrest bail pleas of two police officers who allegedly tortured a suspect in custody, resulting in his death.

In a private complaint to ADSJ Rai Ayub Khan Marth, Muhammad Ramazan said his brother Muhammad Imran, a security guard at Punjab University, had died in hospital on March 4 last year from injuries resulting from brutal torture over the course of several days in police custody.

On February 18, 2012, he said, PU officials Shaukat Ali, Kamal Gul and Javed Sami falsely accused Imran of a theft. They detained and tortured him to try and coerce a confession, he alleged, and then handed him over to Muslim Town police.

Zafar Bukhari, the investigation in-charge, and Sub Inspector Mian Khan tortured his brother over the next three days, the petitioner alleged. They beat him, hung him upside down and rubbed red chilli powder into his wounds, he said.



On February 21, 2012, he said, Imran started vomiting blood and the police officials took him to Shaikh Zayed Hospital. Meanwhile, a magistrate ordered that the theft suspect be remanded in judicial custody and a medical exam be conducted. The petitioner said that the policemen threatened him, saying that if he sought to get his brother medically examined, they would kill the detainee and frame his death as the result of a shootout with police.

On February 24, he said, his brother got bail, but he was in poor health. He was admitted to Jinnah Hospital on February 29 and died on March 4.

The complainant sought a case against the investigation in-charge and the SI, Inspector Abid Hussain and the three PU officials. The pre-arrest bail pleas of the former two have been dismissed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2013.