July 31, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 30, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, July 30: A woman, who was allegedly tortured and kept in illegal detention by police, recorded her statement here on Tuesday.

A source close to the investigation officer told this reporter that in her two-hour long statement, the woman said she along with her 11-year-old niece had been waiting for a taxi when a boy offered them lift in his car. “Later, the boy stopped his car near the RA Bazaar police station and disappeared.”

She said while they were waiting for the boy in the car, a police van reached there and took them to the RA Bazar police station suspecting that the car a stolen one.

She further said after preliminary investigation by the RA Bazar SHO, she and her niece were allowed to go home. Immediately after they reached home at midnight, her father received a telephone call from a sub-inspector, who asked him to bring us back, as another police officer wanted to investigate us, she added, “We were taken to the DSP’s office where my father was asked to go home leaving us with the police, the woman said.

She said she was kept in Airport police station and once or twice she was taken to women police station. She said she was tortured and forced to identify the gang of car thieves for whom she had been working. She said she had no links with any gang.

The father of the woman, who is allegedly being influenced to withdraw his complaint against the police, said he could not afford locking horns with the police.

The terror-stricken woman feared that the police could re-arrest her and implicate her in a false case.