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| November 16, 2005 | Wednesday | Shawwal 13, 1426 |
Maid’s kidnap case exposes police laxity
MULTAN, Nov 15: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has accused the district police of showing ‘traditional’ negligence in probing the alleged kidnapping of a teenaged girl who hails from a humble background. In an investigative report, the commission’s Multan task force says although the case of Sajida Bibi’s kidnapping was reported exactly a year ago, the police have failed to resolve the mystery of her disappearance — yet another reminder of how capable the law enforcers are.
Sajida was reportedly working as a maid at businessman Mian Amer Hanif’s house when she went missing last year. Later, her father got registered a case through court against Amer and his family, charging them with having a role in the kidnapping of his daughter.
The city police chief investigated the matter and reportedly emphasised the need to interrogate Amer. However, when no effort was made to arrest him, the complainant submitted an application to the district police chief for an appropriate action in the light of the recommendations made by the SP (city).
Subsequently, the accused was arrested by a lady police officer, DSP (Investigation) Tallat Habib, and simultaneously a three-day physical remand in police custody was obtained from a court of law. However, the accused was released a day before completion of his three-day physical remand under some ‘extraordinary’ circumstances.
The HRCP report says a close relative of the accused works with an English daily in Islamabad. The journalist and one of his colleagues met Federal Home Secretary Kamal Shah and painted such a horrific picture of Amer’s ‘ordeal’ in police custody that the top interior ministry official ordered the police to release the accused immediately.
On his release, Amer Hanif accused the police of torturing him and urged the area judicial magistrate to order his medical examination. The medical officer reported that the accused was tortured after which he (Amer) got registered a case against DSP Tallat and some other police officials.
One of the accused police officials, however, challenged the medical report in a court of law and pleaded that the accused’s examination should be carried out by a medical board. Entertaining his application, the court nullified the medical report and referred the matter to the board which found no marks of torture on the body.
The report also observes that the allegation of torture was levied to twist the case in favour of the accused. The SP (investigations) admitted before the HRCP team that initially the case had not been properly probed. He said Amer had not been exonerated, as he was a nominated accused in the FIR and furthermore the girl had disappeared from his home.
The culprits will be brought to justice irrespective of how much influential they are, the report quotes the SP as saying.
DSP Tallat denied that Amer was subjected to torture while he was in the police custody on physical remand. The complainant alleged that now the local police were eschewing any action against the accused for being under pressure of some mediamen and the federal interior secretary.
On the other hand, accused Amer and his family pleaded non-guilty. They told the HRCP officials that they were suffering wearisome police investigations for over a year without any piece of evidence that might support their role in Sajida’s disappearance.
The girl’s father Khadim knows the people who have kept her, the family is quoted in the HRCP report as saying this time and again.
The report takes exception to a mug shot of Sajida published in the Nov 2 issue of an Urdu daily. Amer’s wife, Mariam, told the commission team that Sajida was not as grown-up at the time of her disappearance as she was looking in the photograph.
Complainant Khadim Husain said someone had thrown the photograph in his house some two months ago. The photograph originated from a photo studio located near the busy Ghanta Ghar chowk of the city. The studio owner told the HRCP team that he did not have negatives. He, however, guessed that the photograph was made within a year.
In its findings, the HRCP task force observed that the complainant had wrongly projected his daughter as underage and immature while circumstances suggested the situation as vice versa. The police, on the other hand, kept limited the scope of their investigation and could not find any clue to the missing girl even after a year.
“It seems that Sajida is living at an unidentified location of her own freewill as is reflected from her published photograph,” said the report, adding the commission recommended that the police should reinvestigate the matter and interrogate Amer Hanif, his friend Qayyum Khakwani and the family and servants of one Tariq Khokhar.
It further emphasised that a timeframe should be fixed for the completion of the probe and that it should be clearly mentioned in the service record of the former investigators that they could not recover the missing girl despite having investigated the matter for over a year.
The commission feared threat to the life of complainant Khadim Husain and his family, and urged the authorities to ensure their security.
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