Officers insist the men inflicted the wounds on themselves in order to commit suicide. PHOTO: FILE
Ghulam Mustafa was accused along with a second man, Liaqat Ali, of stealing cables in the Vehari District of southern Punjab.
The case is the latest to outrage rights activists following the bludgeoning to death of a pregnant 25-year-old outside Lahore's High Court last week, with one prominent lawyer saying it showed the country was "drifting fast towards barbarism".
The men said police chopped off one of each of their hands on May 30, but officers insist the men inflicted the wounds on themselves in order to commit suicide.
"The doctors have rejoined the hand of one of the accused at the government-run Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital, as his skin was still intact and his hand was clinging to him though his wrist bone," Sadiq Ali Gujjar, a local police official told AFP.
He said the severed hand of the other suspect was found in the police station.
The police said they were now investigating two officials over the incident and had suspended five others including the station's chief.
"We are investigating the incident" said Amjad Javaid Saleemi, a senior police official.
"We have registered cases against two police officials while five police officials including the n-charge of the police station have been suspended" he added.
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I love the "time machine" advice, a "scientist" gave above. As a mater of fact, it's not that far fetched. All one has to do is go to many remote or even extremist-controlled areas of Pakistan. No doubt, after going thru miserable hours of load shedding, no one will be ready to forgive any culprits behind power outage, including the poor copper theives at the bottom of food chain, working diligently like grave robbers of power cable... Stealing Dead Cables. To avoid copper thefts govt tried aluminum cables but they are falling on people's heads when hot.
@unbelievable….dear sir, the formal judicial system doesn't work in Pakistan : an abysmally low conviction rate. And 'medieval religious mantra' is a clear quranic injunction. If we disbelieve that, we disbelieve the basics of our belief and the raison d'être for making this country.
@Faisal: Kindly get back in your time machine and return to the dark ages at once. I promise you'll witness all the blasphemers and witches getting burned, stoned, chopped, beheaded and all those "good" things that you are more accustomed to.
@Faisal:
The police aren't judge/jury and NO the punishment for theft isn't cutting off a hand - that's medieval religious mantra that was rightly abandoned centuries ago by everyone except extremist.
Isnt the punishment of theft cutting the hand? If yes then whats wrong if thier hands were cut? Isnt it a sin to re-attach such a hand? Didnt the doctors commit blasphemy here?
We have butchers and maniacs employed in police. They sever the arms, cut the tongues, assault and rape, kidnap, and kill their captives. And then they pin everything on the victims, that the captive cut his own arm, cut his own tongue, staged her own rape, hung or shot himself. If this is good governance, I wonder what the poor governance would be like.
You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.
Do the police honestly expect us to believe this? If they were really that desperate to kill themselves, they would have cut their throats or slashed their wrists.
Probably not the best candidate for this procedure. Still hats off to the doctors for this procedure in Pakistan. It know it's a hard procedure and complicated. Keep up the good work. Hopefully you will find a more deserving candidate next time