KARACHI: Five people lose lives to police excesses
By S. Raza Hassan
KARACHI, Nov 17: At least five people, including two women, lost their lives on Monday to police high-handedness in different cases. Two of them died in police custody allegedly under torture.
A mother of three children, Bilquees, died in police custody on Monday evening. Police claimed that the 25-year-old woman died when she hanged herself in a lock-up. However, her family members said that she had been beaten to death by the police.
Bilquees’s sister Zebu said the victim had worked as a maid at a bungalow in the Defence Housing Authority. She added that her employers had wanted her to work whole days, but she declined. Angry at her refusal, her employers lodged a theft complaint against her with the police, Zebu said, adding that her sister had been picked up by the police despite the fact that she had been innocent. She said that the five-member family of Bilquees had also been detained.
Zebu, who hails from Hasilpur in the Bahawalpur district, said some family members had been released afterwards. She insisted that Bilquees could not commit suicide because she was devoted to her children: a four-year-old daughter, a two-year-old daughter and a nine-month-old son.
Civil Lines ASP Omar Shahid Hamid said he did not know whether other family members of the woman had been picked up. “Being a woman prisoner, she was handed over to the women’s police station on Nov 11. She had been there since then,” he said.
Mr Hamid said the allegations of the family were false. He said: “It is not a custodial death. There is concrete evidence which suggests that Bilquees committed suicide in the lock-up,” he said.
An elderly man died because of police highhandedness in the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station.
Mazhar Humayun, 55, had lodged a complaint against a shop owner who was the brother of under training ASI Habibur Rehman. On Sunday, Rehman came to Gulshan police station and narrated a fictitious story that somebody was following him and his life was in danger.
Subsequently, a police mobile was sent along with him. They picked up Mazhar from Maisam Plaza and brought him to the police station.
Sources said that the victim had been beaten at the police station during which he suffered a heart attack and died.
However, TPO Gulshan-i-Iqbal said that after suffering from mental trauma, the victim suffered an heart attack while he was being taken to the hospital.
The TPO said that he had ordered the arrest and FIR against the under training ASI, as the victim’s relatives alleged that Mazhar had died due to maltreatment meted out by the police.
The TPO also suspended the SHO of Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station, as to why a respectable citizen was brought to the police station in such a manner which caused him death.
The police on Monday morning shot dead an armed bandit and arrested two of his accomplices after what the police claimed to be a three-hour-long encounter in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. However, the fourth accomplice managed to escape.
The Gulshan-i-Iqbal town police officer, Abdul Khaliq Shaikh, told Dawn that four armed men had entered a house (C- 10) in Gulshan, Block 13-D. They held the inmates hostage at gunpoint.
“One person on the ground floor informed the police about the bandits on helpline 15. As the bandits collected valuables, the police reached the place. An encounter ensued. The bandits climbed into the next house. The police arrested one of the suspects identified as Mohammad Husain.
Later police fire wounded another suspect Jehanzeb while Abdul Razzak, the third suspect, died on the spot.
Police recovered three pistols from the suspects.
The TPO said that the encounter had started at about 5.35am and ended at about 9am.
He said that the suspects hailed from Punjab and had taken up jobs in a factory in the city.
In another encounter, the police on Monday shot dead a wanted criminal and close associate of notorious robber called Rehman in Lyari.
The Lyari town police officer, Ali Mohsin, said the police had received intelligence that Rehman had been present in the area governed by the Chakiwara police. The police raided a place, he said.
After a chase, Rehman and his accomplice Noor Mohammad had managed to escaped on a motorcycle but his close associate took shelter in a house near the Mewashah graveyard, he said.
He added that the police had surrounded the house and in an exchange of fire Mohammad Ali alias Tingu had been shot dead.
The police claimed recovering an AK 47 rifle, two magazines, 100 bullets and a hand grenade.
The TPO said that the Tingu was wanted in 15 cases of murder and attempted murder.
A policeman was arrested on Monday for allegedly killing a mother of three children in his house in Nawalane, Lyari.
Police said that the charred body of Lalita, 25, was buried without a postmortem examination. However, a dying statement was found which was yet to be verified, they added. “We are investigating the case to find out whether Lalita suffered burns accidentally or she was set on fire,” said DSP Haseeb Beg.
The police said Lalita had come to her parents’ home a month ago following a tiff with her husband, Chand.
However, she left her parents’ home in Narainpura, telling them that she had settled the dispute and was going back to her husband’s home. Later, Chand contacted his in-laws and asked about his wife Lalita. The parents and Chand learnt that she was missing and they started to look for her.
Meanwhile, a police constable, posted in the telecommunications wing of the police department, Ashok alias Aashi, came to the house of Lalita’s parents and said that she was seriously ill at his home in Nawalane, Lyari. They went to see her daughter and found her charred body. Ashok said that she had been living with him and her clothes had caught fire when she had been cooking.
The parents of Lalita’s buried her body and later submitted an application to the Risala SHO, Salman Waheed.
