RAWALPINDI: The two police officials who were allegedly abducted and tortured by sit-in participants complained that they were ignored by their seniors and local parliamentarians as none of them visited them in the hospital.

SIs Aslam Hayat, who had been under treatment at the District Headquarters Hospital, was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday with advice of only two days bed rest.

But their families said it might take weeks to recover from the trauma which kept haunting both of them during their sleep.

SI Amanat Ali’s son, who is also associated with the police department, told Dawn that though his father needed several weeks to recover, he was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday as he can be better cared of at home.

He said his father could have been recovered if senior police officers had made a serious effort as they had been in contact with the local leaders of the religious group. Aslam Hayat and Amanat Ali were abducted from the District Headquarters Hospital on Sunday allegedly by religious protesters.

SI Aslam Hayat, who is associated with the homicide investigation unit (HIU) of Sadiqabad circle, was visibly distressed by the attitude of their seniors. He told Dawn that none of the senior police officers and local parliamentarians visited him in the hospital nor did the police department offer any assistance.

Mr Hayat, whose left elbow was fractured during the incident, said after the sit-in was called off the kidnappers put them in an ambulance and took them to Sohan area in the dark and threw them in the bushes alongside the road.

They somehow reached a village where villagers offered them a glass of water and a meal, but they asked a taxi driver to take them to the Sadiqabad police station, Mr Hayat said.

He said two more people - one of whom was probably a local PML-N leader’s driver and the other one was a government official - had also been detained in a makeshift tent by the religious protesters. He said: “It was no less than a miracle that they didn’t kill us.”

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2017