LAHORE: Two Dolphin Squad personnel were suspended from service for allegedly torturing a youth on Cavalry Ground bridge in yet another incident of Punjab Police’s highhandedness in the provincial capital.

The torture was caught on a camera installed on a motorcycle passing by. It showed two Dolphin Squad personnel confronting a youth for parking his motorcycle on a roadside. Later, the men could be seen misbehaving with and slapping the boy in the video that lasts less than 30 seconds.

Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Arif Nawaz Khan took notice of the incident after the video went viral and directed the field officers to submit an inquiry report to him. However, Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Ashfaq Khan suspended both the officers of Dolphin team 302 and directed Dolphin Squad Superintendent of Police (SP) Bilal Zafar to hold an inquiry against them. He said strict action would be taken against the policemen involved in misbehaving with citizens.

According to a press release, the youth was doing a wheelie and a case was also registered against him at the Naseerabad police station.

In the past few months, Dolphin Squad has invited a lot of public outcry after it shot at two citizens within just two weeks. In the first incident in May, a woman returning home from a hospital died after a bullet fired by Dolphin Squad officials hit her.

In another incident in the same month, the force had shot at and injured a youth in Gulberg, who was returning home after purchasing medicines. The officials rather than providing first aid to the victim took him to police station and subjected him to torture. The officials were spotted in a video footage torturing a shopkeeper on Bund Road.

Last year, a Dolphin team had shot at and injured a mentally challenged person in Gulshan-i-Ravi. The officers claimed that they had acted in self-defence as the deceased was carrying a knife and had attempted an assault on them. The same year, a teenage passerby died when he was caught in a reported exchange of fire between Dolphin personnel and suspected robbers on Bund Road.

SP Zafar had introduced refresher courses for Dolphin officials to tackle the issue, and claimed that the initiative was yielding results, as the number of complaints against the squad had dropped drastically.

FOUN DEAD: A domestic help was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Defence on Sunday.

Police claimed that Khalida, 30, of Okara was staying with her husband, Ali Gohar, who was a cook at a house in H Block, Defence. The woman was found unconscious by her husband in the morning in their quarter. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead.

Police shifted the body to morgue for autopsy.

The investigation officer said that Khalida was unwell and called to Lahore by her husband for treatment. The cause of her death would be determined after an autopsy was conducted.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2019