PESHAWAR: A local court in Nowshera has ordered registration of FIR against station house officers (SHOs) of two police stations charged by a citizen for trespassing and torturing his son in illegal confinement.

Additional district and sessions judge Mirza Mohammad Kashif in his capacity as justice of peace accepted a petition filed by a resident of Risalpur (Nowshera), Redi Gul, under section 22-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowered the judge to order registration of an FIR if the concerned police declined to do so.

The court directed the Nowshera district police officer and the SHO of the concerned Risalpur police station to register the FIR in accordance with the contents of the petition.

The court observed it was mindful of the fact that the instant complaint was against officials of the police, therefore, in view of peculiar facts of the instant petition the RPO (regional police officer) Mardan was directed that after registration of the FIR it should be entrusted to any senior police officer or crimes investigation wing not below the rank of SSP.

Directs Mardan RPO to assign investigation to senior officer

Advocate Syed Azizuddin Kakakhel appeared for the petitioner and stated that on Apr 9, 2023, at 2am the petitioner was present at his house along with other family members when police personnel headed by SHOs of police stations Nowshera Cantt and Nowshera Kalan named Waqas Khan and Irshad Khan, respectively, trespassed his house without any search warrant and started abusing them.

He claimed that upon resistance, SHO Waqas Khan beat his son Hussain Gul and also tortured women folk.

He stated that the police took away another son of the petitioner named Hassan Gul without any justification along with three cellular phones.

He added that the detainee Hassan Gul was kept in illegal detention for many days and severely tortured during that period.

Comments were filed by the SP (complaint redressal cell) who completely denied the occurrence and instead stated that the accused Hassan Gul was required in a case of robbery registered at Nowshera Cant police station on Feb 7, 2023.

The court observed that prima facie it was a case of misuse of power and authority rather employing extra-judicial process against the petitioner and his family wherein high-ups of the police did not bother to pay any heed to allegations of transgression and custodial torture.

It was observed that the SP (complaint redressal) instead of conducting any impartial inquiry into the matter, merely obtained the response from SHO Risalpur, who not only evasively denied the allegations rather also reported that Hassan Ali was required in a specific case and was in fact arrested by Akora Khattak police on Apr 19, 2023.

The court also pointed out that when on Apr 19 when the petitioner’s son was produce before a judicial magistrate he had also observed blood oozing out from his right ear after which the magistrate issued direction to the medical superintendent DHQ Hospital for constituting a medical board.

The court observed that the facts and observations recorded by the judicial magistrate were strong corroboratory circumstance towards allegations levelled in the instant petition.

The judge ruled that the acts complained into the instant petition against the respondent SHOs and other contingent party apparently constituted cognizable offence under the law, therefore, without proper investigation by an impartial and independent police officer it could not be simply ignored.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2023