KARACHI, March 31: Twelve-year-old Mohammed Owais who committed suicide on March 27 after he was sodomized by four policemen at Shah Faisal Colony Gate, was perhaps not the first victim of such bestiality at that particular spot.
Those living in the area say such incidents, though unreported, have occurred in the past as well. They believe that it is Owais’s suicide that has brought the problem to the fore.
Najmul Hasan, a local leader of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan, told Dawn that policemen had committed several similar criminal acts in the past.
“The latest one in a series of such horrifying incidents has led people to talk about them more openly,” he said.
The inquiry officer of the case, Kamran Khan, told Dawn that the past record of the two policemen, Abdullah, aged 40, and Dildar, aged 26, who were under arrest, spoke for itself.
“The two policemen have been found involved in similar criminal offences when their record files were examined,” he said.
The inquiry officer quoted Owais as having told his older brother Mohammed Irfan on his way to hospital that he had been subjected to sexual abuse by four policemen.
Abdullah and Dildar were arrested soon after the incident, and another policeman, Siddiqi, was taken into custody on Saturday night. The fourth policeman, Fazal-i-Rabbi, is absconding.
Besides the four policemen, their two friends, Khurram and Qasim, were also present on the spot, but they did not take part in the criminal act, the police said.
Owais’s brother Irfan told this reporter that when Owais returned home on Thursday night he had locked himself up in the washroom which was situated just near the entrance to the house.
He probably bought the kerosene on his way back home as they did not have the oil at home, Irfan said.
Owais’s mother told Dawn that she had never seen such a lifeless look on her son’s face when he returned home on Thursday night. He went straight into the washroom and locked himself up.
Irfan said his mother and sister asked Owais what had happened.
“Owais replied that a very bad thing had happened to him. He kept repeating it and set himself on fire and came out of the washroom,” he said.
Irfan recalled that his brother kept repeating the sentence as he tried to put out the fire with a blanket.
“On our way to hospital I asked him what had happened to him. When I insisted, he told me that he had been sodomized by four policemen near the Colony Gate,” Irfan said.
He said Owais did not complain of pain but he repeatedly asked for cold water a the hospital. “Finally, I gave him cold water despite the doctor’s instructions against it,” he said.
Both the inquiry officer and Owais’s brother said Owais had given a statement to a duty doctor in the burns ward at Civil Hospital before his death.
The inquiry officer told Dawn that the four policemen had intercepted the boy at the Colony Gate.
He was returning from his sister’s house carrying some stitched and unstitched cloths in a plastic bag.
The policemen searched him and demanded cash. As the boy did not have cash with him, they took him into the basement of Faisal Shopping Complex where they sodomized him.
This reporter visited the place of the incident in the basement. It is fully concealed from the road and has a safe passage from the back side of the incomplete building.
The inquiry officer said after the incident two of the policemen had handed over the plastic bag to a man at a nearby cabin with the instructions that the boy would collect it after giving you a thousand-rupee note.
The cabin proprietor, who is a key witness in the case, has been taken into protective custody.
Ironically, he has been detained on the premises of the police station where the two offenders have been kept.
Irfan told Dawn that he had met the cabin’s proprietor, Ashiq. Quoting Ashiq, Irfan said Ashiq came to the police station after he saw Owais’s photograph in newspapers on Friday morning.
Referring to Owais’s dying statement which he recorded to the duty doctor in Civil Hospital’s burns ward, the inquiry officer said this statement was of vital importance. It was still with the doctor.
The family had not allowed post-mortem examination of Owais. “If they had allowed autopsy, sperm detection would have proved a great help,” the inquiry officer said.
A police official, who asked not to be named, told Dawn that the policemen involved in the incident used to get themselves posted at the Colony Gate, as it was one of the main entrances to Shah Faisal Colony. A large number of people disembarked from buses at this place and walked into the colony. This provided the policemen with an opportunity to select their prey, he added.
The United Human Rights Council of Pakistan (UHRCP), a non-governmental organization, staged a protest demonstration in the city on Monday against the criminal assault of a 13-year-old boy by policemen and the boy’s consequent suicide in Shah Faisal Colony on March 27, adds PPI.
Speaking at the demonstration, the UHRCP chairman demanded of the government to award capital punishment to those who committed the bestial act. He also demanded compensation to the victim’s family.
