SIALKOT: A 65-year-old man, the father of an alleged hardened criminal, died in police custody allegedly due to police torture at the Pasrur City police station on Saturday morning, family and medical sources said.

Mahmood Ahmed was picked by police for sheltering his son, Rashid, alias Bhola, wanted in a double murder.

Police raided Ahmed’s house on Jan 24 on a tip off but could not find Bhola there. The police arrested Ahmad for allegedly sheltering his son.

The family told reporters the police brutally tortured Ahmad in the Pasrur City police station late on Friday. They said instead of arresting Rashid in a two-year-old double murder case, the police arrested and killed his father.

The family staged a demonstration in the Pasrur city by placing the body in front of Civil Hospital and demanded a murder case against the policemen.

Senior police officials negotiated with the protesting people and assured them of action against the accused police officials.

However, no case was registered into the killing of the old man as the police were awaiting the postmortem report.

Sialkot District Police Officer (DPO) Muhammad Gohar Nafees denied police torture in the death of Ahmad. He said he had ordered a departmental probe into the matter to be carried out by SP (Investigation) Asad Sarfraz Khan.

Pasrur-based Federal Minister for Planning and Development Zahid Hamid took notice of the incident and asked the DPO to probe into the matter.