ISLAMABAD: The National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) has taken suo moto notice of the federal police killing an unarmed civilian and decided to seek an explanation of the incident from the Ministry of Interior and the government.

Talking to Dawn, National Human Rights Commissioner Chaudhry Mohammad Shafique said it was also decided to look into the issue of capacity building, training and educating officials of law enforcement agencies and that such incidents cannot be tolerated.

A 25-year-old man was shot and killed at a picket on Feb 3 when after he did not stop his car. The victim’s family held a protest, blocked roads and burned tyres after which the police registered a case against the official who opened fire and who managed to flee after the incident.

Commission will be inquiring into training given to law enforcement officials so that such incidents are avoided in future

According to the autopsy report, Taimoor Riaz, who was an auto-spare parts salesman, was hit in the back by two bullets and in the head with one. All three bullets were fired from the back.

The police claim Taimoor was driving his white Toyota Corolla rashly and did not stop when signalled to.

Mr Shafique said the incident had called the performance of the federal police and other law enforcement agencies into question.

In reply to a question, Mr Shafique said this was not the first incident of the police opening fire in the federal capital and that there was therefore a need for training the police.

He said the interior ministry should take the issue seriously.

“There is no concept of internal accountability in the law enforcement agencies which is why such incidents occur.

“The police could have intercepted the victim further on and if they needed to stop the car then, the police could have fired at the tyres,” he said.

“We are more concerned about why the victim was fired at because he did not even have weapons in the car. This shows how [unprofessional] our law enforcement agencies are. We just saw the issue of missing persons and now this incident has occurred,” he added.

The human rights commissioner said law enforcement agencies should follow international human rights standards, even during anti-terrorism operations.

“We will hold an inquiry into the matter and give recommendations on how to avoid such incidents in the future,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2017