BAHAWALPUR: Regional Police Officer (RPO) Imran Mehmood has said if any police official was found guilty in the probe into alleged custodial death of ATM thief Salahuddin Ayubi, he will have to face strict legal action.

Addressing a hurriedly called press conference here on Wednesday, the RPO said both Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and Inspector-General of Police Arif Nawaz have taken serious notice of the incident and were monitoring progress on the matter.

He said a five-member medical board led by the medical superintendent of the Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan, had carried out the postmortem examination of the deceased’s body.

He claimed that according to the initial report of the doctors who conducted the postmortem examination, discoloring of some parts of the body was noticed and to ascertain its cause, the skin samples had been sent to the Punjab Forensic Sciences Agency’s laboratory in Lahore for analysis.

Skin samples sent to forensic lab

He added that as per the preliminary postmortem examination report, none of the bones was found fractured, while there were also no signs of torture on the skull, chest, heart and kidneys of the deceased.

The RPO claimed no burns marks were found on the body, adding that the chemicals used during the postmortem examination by the doctors, however, might have left such marks on the body.

He said during the procedure, the doctors sometimes also cut some portions of the body to know the death cause.

Expressing his dismay at the pictures of Ayubi’s body that were uploaded on the social media, he said it was tantamount to desecration of human body. He told a questioner that the inquiry into the death was expected to be completed soon.

INJURED: Six persons, including three women, were allegedly injured on Wednesday in firing by as many unidentified robbers, who also attempted to loot a petrol pump, failing which they escaped by a car they had snatched near Uch Sharif, about 70km from here.

According to police sources, three robbers attempted to loot a petrol pump but the guards offered resistance. Upon this, the robbers opened indiscriminate fire, injuring six persons, including three women, present there. Amid firing, the gunmen snatched a car and fled away by it.

The injured were shifted to the Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) where condition of two of the women was said to be serious.

Uch Sharif police claimed they were tracking the fleeing robbers against whom a case was yet to be registered.

DENGUE CASES: Two patients admitted to the BVH on Tuesday tested positive for dengue virus and were shifted to the hospital’s isolation ward on Wednesday.

This was stated by Dr Zakir Husain, CEO of the district health authority.

According to Dr Hussain, Adeel (19) who tested positive for dengue virus belonged to Liquatpur and Zaman (30) was a resident of Bahawalpur. He said both Zaman and Adeel had traveled to Islamabad and returned to the city before Eidul Azha.

He said it appeared that they had contacted the virus at Islamabad.

According to BVH doctors, both the dengue patients were in isolation ward and being treated as their condition was serious.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2019