BAHAWALNAGAR: The father of a ‘police shooting’ victim has alleged that the Madrasa police arrested his two teenage sons and threatened to kill them if he raised his voice over the alleged fake encounter.

Faryad Ali, 70, told Dawn that after the Friday shooting by Madrasa police in front of their house, his daughter-in-law Shabana was killed by the police firing while his 20-year-old son Shabbir was fighting for his life at the Bahawal Victoria Hospital.

Faryad said that on Friday his younger sons, Dilgeer (18) and Karamat (13), had rushed to the police station to see their wounded brother who was not being shifted to hospital by the police but they did not return home. He said when he was busy attending his daughter-in-law and son at the DHQ Hospital, Station House Officer Matloob and Sub-Inspector Shaukat stormed his house, broke cabinets and boxes on the pretext of the search and forcibly took women and children to the police station where they were tortured and humiliated for several hours.

On Saturday, the police officials contacted him and told him that his both sons were in custody and they would return home only if he did not move the court against the police.

SHO denies arrest of man’s sons

Faryad alleged that he was also asked to issue a written statement in favour of SHO Matloob and SI Shaukat Ali, terming the encounter real. Otherwise, they threatened to kill his sons who were in illegal police custody, he alleged.

Faryad went on to say the DSP Saddar wanted him to announce that Shabana had committed suicide by her husband’s pistol instead of being killed by police. He claimed that on Sunday, police arrested and tortured his nine-year old son Azmat to pressurise him to accept police demands. Faryad repeated that his family was being victimised at the behest of an influential family that had occupied his three kanal land. He warned of committing self-immolation if police atrocities continued.

IO Shaukat Ali claimed that Faryad belonged to a criminal family and was making false allegations against him.

SHO Matloob also denied the arrest of Faryad’s sons and showed his ignorance over their disappearance.

The DPOs spokesperson Shehzad Ishfaq also said that police had neither issued threats to Faryad nor arrested his sons.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2022