Alleged murder: Three cops booked

SHO Fayaz Shinwari has also been suspended for negligence of duty.


Rizwan Shehzad April 19, 2015
The man’s family claim he was pushed into this stream. PHOTO: EXPRESS

ISLAMABAD:


Three policemen have been booked for the death of a suspected robber who allegedly jumped in a stream in Sector I-9.


The policemen, ASI Shahid Muneer, Constable Habib and Waseem, have been booked under section 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Industrial Area Police Station. SHO Fayaz Shinwari has also been suspended for negligence of duty.

Handcuffed Farman Masih, who was arrested for stealing car batteries on April 18, died in Sector I-9 on Saturday after falling into a stream while allegedly attempting to escape from police custody. Eyewitnesses, however, had accused police officials of pushing the man into the stream, which is at the bottom of a steep ditch. The body of the victim was found from the stream after 20 hours on Sunday morning.

In the FIR, the victim’s family said the police brutally tortured Masih and pushed him into the stream. Following the incident, the police did not listen to the family and pushed them out of the police station, the FIR stated.

The police came to inspect the crime scene after the residents blocked the road and started protesting against police highhandedness, it added.

The SHO had claimed that police officials arrested Farman in a battery theft case and one battery was recovered from his possession. When the police questioned him about the remaining batteries, he took them to the place where he sold them off, he said.

When the policemen and the suspect got there, he leapt towards the stream, the SHO had claimed.

A search for the body was not undertaken that day due to darkness, said a policeman, emphasising that Masih was a thief and people, including journalists, should abstain from expressing sympathies for a ‘criminal.’

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2015. 

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