KARACHI: A non-governmental organisation (NGO), currently working for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, has accused a police station of keeping its field worker and three patients — all the four undergoing treatment for HIV/AIDS — in ‘illegal confinement’ for up to nine hours, it emerged on Tuesday.

The victims kept in illegal detention at the Eidgah police station were rescued only after a Rangers official intervened, sources said.

Speaking to Dawn, Dr Saleem Azam who heads the Pakistan Society said that though some field workers of the NGO had been subjected to maltreatment by police earlier also, the latest incident was the worst the organisation had ever experienced.

“We have been working in this field for the past three decades and have never experienced such an insulting and criminal behaviour before,” he said, adding that there had been incidents in the past in which policemen had either beaten up the NGO staff or picked them up on allegations that they were drug-sellers.

“It’s so unfortunate. Our workers always carry official letters that clearly state that they belong to a registered NGO and have been authorised by the government to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS,” he said.

Dr Azam said Naimatullah, an HIV/AIDS patient working as a social mobiliser for the NGO, had been designated on June 20 to take three HIV/AIDS patients to the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) in the morning where they were registered for anti-retroviral therapy. “While the patients along with Naimatullah were waiting in a queue for laboratory investigations, a policeman of the Eidgah police station approached them and asked them to accompany him to the police checkpoint,” he recalled.

According to him, the policeman, later identified as head constable Arif Hussain, refused to listen to Naimatullah’s repeated pleas that he was on duty along with three HIV/AIDS patients who desperately needed medical treatment at the hospital and took them to a nearby checkpoint and later to the Eidgah police station. “They were kept in illegal confinement for up to nine hours, though Naimatullah showed them his service card, along with copies of letters issued by the Sindh AIDS Control Progamme (in favour of the NGO’s programme) to five police stations of Liaquatabad, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulberg, North Karachi and Orangi Town.

“All explanations were responded with abusive language and threats of grave consequences, for the policeman suspected that the three patients and their caretaker were selling blood,” he said. They were told that the SHO, who would decide their fate, was taking a nap at that time, he said. “At about 3pm, Naimatullah was allowed to speak to his family on the phone. He immediately called his manager who in turn informed the project manager about the whole episode,” Dr Azam said.

When Dr Aftab Ahmed of the Sindh AIDS Control Programme was contacted over the issue, he called the relevant police station and asked the officials to release the NGO staff. However, instead of releasing the patients and their caretaker, the head constable abused all the four victims, because he was expecting to extort money from their family members, said Dr Azam. He said the head constable then demanded a bribe from the victims and warned them of dire consequences if they failed to oblige. “At about 6pm, the SHO woke up and gave them a final warning to arrange some money. In the meantime, our project manager, Abdul Jabbar, reached the police station who was also asked by the policemen to grease their palms. Since he had come empty handed, the angry police staff deprived him of his service card,” Dr Azam said.

Finally, he added, the project manager called and narrated the whole story to Lt Col Ahmed Junaid Masud of the Pakistan Rangers, Sindh. “It was on his intervention that our staff member and patients were finally released from the police station at 7pm. However, Naimatullah was warned by the policemen that he must not be seen on the premises of the civil hospital again and that Abdul Jabbar should come again to report compliance,” he said.

Condemning the police high-handedness, Dr Azam said that the NGO efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS were greatly hampered by the police and asked for all concerned quarters to play their role in defining the domain and authority of the force. “The police must operate within their limits and civil institutions should be helped in performing their duties instead of being abused and threatened,” he said, adding that he had sent his complaint in writing to all relevant federal and provincial government officials.

Currently, the NGO works in various districts of Sindh and Punjab for the prevention of HIV/AIDS among street-based injecting drug users. Major part of this project is being implemented with the financial and technical support of The Global Fund Round-9 under the supervision of and in partnership with Nai Zindagi Trust.

In its efforts to rehabilitate HIV/AIDS patients, the NGO often employ them as its field workers.

Upon contact, Eidgah SHO Shabbir Rao rejected the allegation of nine-hour illegal confinement, threats, abuse and attempts to extort money from the NGO staff member and HIV/AIDS patients as completely baseless.

He said: “We did take them into custody on a complaint by the official in charge of the civil hospital laboratory that the NGO staff was conducting blood tests of incoming patients after charging them between Rs2,000 and Rs3,000.”

The police could keep suspects in custody for 24 hours, he said, claiming that the four people were kept at the police station for two to three hours. “We released them as soon as a doctor from the NGO came and verified them as their staff,” the SHO said.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2015

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