HARIPUR: Six policemen, including a sub-inspector, were suspended and a departmental probe ordered for their alleged negligence which led to the killing of an undertrial woman prisoner inside the district courts here the other day.

District police officer Ashfaq Anwar suspended a sub-inspector, a head constable and four constables, and ordered an inquiry against them.

ASP Zulfiqar Khan Jadoon was appointed the inquiry officer, who was asked to complete the probe in three days.

Following the woman’s murder by her husband, the DPO had replaced all guards of the district courts and deployed additional force outside and inside the courts.

The woman was shot dead in the parking area of the courts when she was being taken to the police van for her onward journey to Haripur jail.

The accused, according to the family sources, was annoyed with his wife, a mother of two minor children, for her alleged elopement with a man from the same village.

The woman had been behind bars since a case was registered against her in July for being involved in abduction of her niece on the complaint of her real brother.

Meanwhile, the victim’s husband, who was arrested from the courts soon after the murder, was produced before the court of judicial magistrate amid tight security on Saturday. The court remanded him into police custody for two days.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2020