HARIPUR: A villager has accused the police of subjecting his son to torture and sexual assault during custody at a private torture cell, and sought medical examination of the ‘victim’ and action against the policemen involved in the alleged custodial mistreatment.

Pir Amanat Hussain Shah of Mirpur village, through a written complaint to the Haripur district police officer, said Samiullah, a head constable of the city police station accompanied by some other colleagues arrived at his home in civvies at around 11.20am on Feb 17, bundled his son, Shafqat Abbas Shah, in a private car and drove him to a private room in Panian village, where they tortured him in the name of investigation.

The complainant alleged the policemen pumped red chillies-mixed liquid into his body, removed his nails, hit his foot soles with sticks after fastening his legs and hands, and injected him some sedatives before sexually assaulting him.

The policemen, he said forced his son to confess committing a robbery with three other friends at a village’s shop in December last year.

“The policemen then moved him to the city police station at around 4.30pm the same day where they kept him in detention without FIR for another 72 hours,” he said, adding on Feb 19, the city police handed him over to the Kotnajibullah police, who registered an FIR the same day against unknown robbers, who had snatched cash and valuables from two men sitting at a shop on Dec 8, 2022.

He said the Kotnajibullah police announced formal arrest of his son on Feb 21 in the same robbery case, and obtained his one-day physical remand. “During investigation, the police took his son and another youth, Hamza Ali, to their native village, subjected them to torture publicly and forced them to pose with pistols lying in their laps,” he alleged.

The complainant requested a proper medical examination of his son, who was sent to Haripur jail on Thursday.

The complainant along with some women of his family and villagers also demonstrated outside the DPO office.

DPO Umar Khan said he had ordered a probe into the torture complaint, saying DSP Ghazi Yasin Janjua was tasked with conducting medical examination of the accused. He said it would be investigated as to why the FIR into the robbery was registered on Feb 19 though the incident was reported on Dec 8, 2022.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2023