Illegal confinement: Sargodha sessions judge asked for report on custody death

Complainant says his son died from police torture.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday directed the Sargodha district and sessions judge to submit a report on a constable’s son’s death from police torture. A complaint in this regard was filed with the LHC Complaint’s Cell by Constable Sher Ahmad Chishti, a resident of Aziz Park Sillanwali.

Chishti said he had been serving in the Police Department for over 20 years, and that officials of the same department took his son away from him.



He said his 21-year-old son Fahim Ahmad was on his way to a market when he was stopped and taken to Sillanwali police station by ASI Muhammad Iqbal and Constables Umar Hayat, Zafar Ullah and Munawar Ahmad.

Chishti said the policemen and Muhammad Nasir, a personal gunman of the Station House Officer Riaz Ahmad, beat and tortured his son.

He said when he fainted, they took him to some undisclosed location and beat and burned him.

He said he visited the police station several times to request the SHO to release his son, but he did not listen. He said he was told that he could not see his son for a week.

On the 10th day, he said, a police constable informed him that the Sillanwali DSP wanted to see him. He said when he went to the DSP’s office, he (DSP) took him to the district headquarters hospital. He said he found that his son had been brought to the hospital in critical condition.

He said the police and some doctors, who treated his son, forced him to sign a blank paper saying that they needed his permission to operate on his son, whose kidneys had failed.



He said his son died during the dialysis.

Chishti said his son’s kidney’s had failed due to the torture he had been subjected to during illegal confinement.

He said he filed a complaint nominating six men, including the SHO and his private gunman.

He said the next day after the burial, when he went to the police station, he was shocked to learn that the FIR had been tampered with and that the SHO had removed his own and his gunman’s name from it.

He said he also came to know that the police had registered a case against his son and recorded his arrest the day his son died.

He then filed a complaint at the LHC complaint cell.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2013.