Dawn’s ‘Eye-Witness Account’ segment features accounts of individuals who have experienced adversity or have been affected by a miscarriage of justice. All accounts are verified as far as possible by Dawn’s editorial team. Readers are encouraged to send in accounts of similar incidents that may have befallen them, so that attention can be called to such problems and they can be addressed with due debate in the public eye. Readers can send their accounts to re.isb@dawn.com.

My name is Syed Mohammad Asif and work as an assistant professor at a local government college. I cannot forget how I was harassed by the police at Benazir Bhutto International Airport, just to make a quick buck. I’m sure this has happened to others as well, so I’m coming forward to tell my story.

I went to the airport with a friend to receive a relative who was returning on a Haj flight from Saudi Arabia. We were waiting for the flight outside the arrival lounge when a police official from the airport police post accosted us. We told him we were there to receive a Haj returnee, but he hauled us off to the police post, located inside the airport parking, asking us all sorts of irrelevant questions.

At the post, a man in plainclothes snapped a photograph of me and began to harass me, then took me outside and told me that he could make the trouble go away if I bribed him.

I tried to explain who I was and that I’d done nothing wrong, but they were unrelenting, even threatening to book me on criminal charges.

My friend had to give them everything he had, cash and all, just so they would let us go.

It was pure extortion. They took my mobile phone number and threatened to print my photograph in the newspaper if I didn’t give them more money. He has called me a few times since this incident as well and I’ve ended up paying over Rs35,000 to this man and his accomplice. I just felt so powerless and did not know who I could turn to.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2015

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