March 29, 2002	Friday	Muharram 14, 1423

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GUJRAT, March 28: A brother of former PML MNA Syed Manzoor Husain Shah and district Naib Nazim Syed Noorul Hasan Shah kidnapped four boys from Lalamusa and severely tortured them.

Ghulam Abbas, Haroon Arshad, Asif Hayat and Imran Sultan — all 12 to 13 years old — were kept in illegal confinement and tortured for more than 20 hours.

A number of people, who wished not to be named, told this correspondent that Syed Nasir Abbas Shah along with seven unidentified armed men forcibly took the boys to his outhouse at Qulewal Syedan on the evening of Youm-i-Ashur (March 25).

According to reports, Nasir and his accomplices thrashed the boys in a room of the outhouse and 10 dogs were unleashed on them.

The heads and eyebrows of Haroon, Asif and Imran were shaved off. One of the victims somehow managed to escape from the outhouse. Area police caught the boy and handed him over to Nasir Shah.

The boys were handed over to their families on March 26. Ghulam Abbas and Asif were admitted to private clinics when Dr Naeem of the civil hospital refused to treat them.

“The boys are pick-pockets,” neighbours of one of them told Dawn. “Ghulam Abbas had tried to pickpocket Nasir Shah during the Youm-i-Ashur procession in Lalamusa. Nasir caught him.”

A doctor of the private clinic treating Ghulam Abbas said the boy has injuries which might have been inflicted by dogs.

The families of the boys were threatened with dire consequences if they contacted police. Relatives of Imran and Haroon were harassed to the extent that they did not admit them to a hospital.

Lalamusa City police registered a case under sections 365 and 337 VA(1) against Nasir Shah and his seven unidentified accomplices with no arrest so far.