Custodial murder: SHO on the run after arrest ordered

Officer found to have tortured suspect to death.

LAHORE:

Nawankot SHO Javed Cheema has been suspended and is on the run after Operations SSP Rana Abdul Jabbar opened an investigation into allegations that he had tortured a suspect to death.

Sources at the SSP’s office said that Cheema had absconded after hearing that he was to be arrested over the disappearance of a rickshaw driver named Rizwan. Sub Inspector Amir Cheema and three constables have been arrested for abetment.

Rizwan had allegedly been identified as an accomplice by a suspect arrested for a dacoity in Ferozewala. The 25-year-old father of two was said to have been part of a gang of robbers.

Nawankot police detained Rizwan two days before Eid and tortured him to extract a confession, killing him in the process, according to a preliminary inquiry. Rizwan’s family told the SSP that he had not been nominated in an FIR nor presented before a magistrate. They had asked the SHO where Rizwan was, but he had no answer.

Rizwan had been killed in illegal detention and his body had been dumped in the River Ravi by three Nawankot constables on the SHO’s orders, according to the initial investigation report. Nawankot police then filed an FIR against Rizwan for “escaping from police custody”.

A case has been registered against the policemen under Section 360 (kidnapping) of the Pakistan Penal Code. Once Rizwan’s body is found from the Ravi, a murder charge (Section 302) will be added to the FIR, said sources at the SSP’s office. The SSP will personally lead the investigation, they added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2013.