PESHAWAR, April 15: Renowned Pushto singer Gulzar Alam has accused the government and local police for disgracing his family owing to his profession.
“I am not safe in the province due to my profession. Even my family is not safe, but I will stay here and entertain the people through singing,” the Pride of Performance award winner, Gulzar Alam said during a press conference held here on Monday.
The family of Gulzar Alam underwent a trauma on Thursday night when 27 police officials forced their entry into his house and without arrest warrants detained his three sons and a brother at Tatara police station on the allegation of kidnapping two children.
Two months back Gulzar Alam was arrested from a marriage function during a music show in the cantonment area owing to the ‘ban on music placed by the MMA government.’ Gulzar Alam said he was being harassed owing to his profession. “After the first incident in February last during which a police official insulted him by breaking his harmonium, I had decided to leave the city,” he said.
“But now I have decided to stay here and face the government. I never bowed down during the Zia regime when I used to sing songs of nationalism and democracy. And I will not give up the performance due to the government pressure,” he pledged.
The wife of Gulzar Alam, who was also present on the occasion, said on Thursday she received a call from an Afghan Rozi Khan, who accused her of kidnapping his two sons. “I said that I am the wife of Gulzar Alam and you must be misguided by someone.”
“But Rozi Khan insisted that he received a call from my phone number and someone demanded Rs 1.2 million as ransom for the release of his two sons.”
She said she informed her brother-in-law Sher Ali as Gulzar Alam was in Karachi on that day. “Sher Ali talked with Rozi Khan and convinced him that the family of Gulzar Alam is not involved in the kidnapping,” she maintained.
On Friday at 2am, some 25 male and two female police officials entered the house and started harassing the inmates. “I was alone with my children and the police without showing the search warrants ransacked the house,” she lamented.
When she asked for the search warrants, the police in charge said: “I am a policeman and I don’t need to show any search warrant.”
The policemen dragged her sons Shan, 15, Suleman, 22, Khatir, 10 and her brother-in-law Alam Khan, 26 to the police vehicle. They also beat Alam Khan before pushing him into the vehicle, she claimed.
She said that the next day the police released her children and brother-in-law. Later Rozi Khan also apologized her for misreading the kidnapper’s phone number on CLI.
