ISLAMABAD: Students at a religious seminary contacted the police on Tuesday and told them that they had detained some terrorists at the seminary in Banigala. Upon reaching the scene, the capital police found three cops of Rawalpindi police locked up in a room, who had raided the seminary to arrest a prayer leader on charges of the Telegraph Act.

On Tuesday evening, a three-member team from the Saddar Bairooni police station in Rawalpindi, along with some unidentified men, raided the Masjid Faizan-e-Madina to arrest a prayer leader in connection with a case registered against him on charges of the Telegraph Act.

The capital police quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the raiding party, comprising a sub-inspector and two constables, entered the mosque before Maghrib prayer and beat up the prayer leader Qari Sher Mohammad. The seminary students, they said, rushed to the prayer leader’s rescue and were also manhandled.

A large number of people from the area gathered at the mosque for prayers overpowered the cops and the men accompanying them and detained them at the seminary.

The cops were attempting to arrest prayer leader without warrant

Later, the capital police were informed about the incident and they reached the mosque along with senior police officers. According to a capital police official, the cops from Rawalpindi failed to satisfactorily explain the reason for raiding the mosque and could not produce arrest warrants for the prayer leader.

Moreover, they had also not informed the Banigala Police about raiding a mosque in their jurisdiction. The official said that under the law, if the concerned police station is not informed, the raid is considered to be illegal and a case could be registered against the cops conducting the raid.

The official claimed that there was some vested interest behind the raid, which is why the local police were not informed.

“The men accompanying the cops wanted to occupy the mosque and the seminary,” he claimed.

Another official, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that on August 3, four men took the prayer leader with them on the pretext of taking him for a Quran Khawani. The prayer leader told the police that the men held him at gunpoint and forced him to make a statement on camera.

“He was forced to say that he was involved with a girl and that he is tendering a formal apology over the act,” the official said.

“The prayer leader was also forced to say that he is giving up his position at the mosque and would never return to the mosque or the seminary,” the official said.

Following the incident on August 3, Banigala Police registered a case against the four men on charges of PPCs 384 (punishment for extortion), 389 (putting person in fear of accusation of offence, in order to commit extortion), 109 (punishment of abetment if the Act abetted committed In consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).

According to the preliminary investigation, the men nominated in the FIR retaliated by registering a counter case against him at the Saddar Baroni Police Station. Later, they accompanied three cops from the police station to the mosque and made a raid at the mosque to arrest the prayer leader.

A police official told Dawn that the Saddar Baroni cops were shifted to the police station and senior police officers would direct whether a case is to be registered against them for the ‘illegal’ raid made at the mosque.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2015

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