ISLAMABAD, April 20: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has demanded a judicial probe into reports of the killing of a bus driver allegedly by the personnel of Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), a military organisation that has taken over the collection of toll tax on most of the country’s highways and motorways.

According to press reports, bus driver Qaiser Mahmood was beaten to death with belts after exchange of hot words with the personnel of the FWO during entry into the M-3 via Kamalpur interchange in Faisalabad on Sunday.

The reports said due to excessive bleeding the driver became unconscious and died on the spot. Drivers and staff of other buses who gathered on the scene were not allowed to physically check the injured.

In a statement, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar demanded a judicial probe into the incident by a judge of the high court and to make the findings public. “A thorough judicial probe is critical for doing justice to the victim and also for the image of the security forces,” he said, adding: “The follow up press reports of the incident are even more disturbing.”

The press reports on Tuesday said the police declared the killing of the driver accidental before handing over the body to the relatives without a post-mortem. Further, government officials forced the deceased’s relatives to take the body without legal formalities.

The Nishatabad police reported in their daily diary that the driver died accidentally after a scuffle with “someone” at the Kamalpur interchange.

The doubts created by the reports are most serious that demand a thorough judicial probe, the PPP spokesman said. The party also urged human rights bodies and members of the legal fraternity to ensure that nothing is kept secret and that justice is done.

Mr Babar said if such incidents of highhandedness involving security personnel were not investigated impartially and the culprits not punished it would do incalculable harm. He recalled that on November 26 last year an 82-year-old man was hit by a car near Golra Mor in Rawalpindi by an official vehicle driven by a soldier in uniform who after seeing that the victim had died fled from the scene.

The incident was reported in the press a month later and was immediately taken up by the human rights committee of the Senate that met on January 17. It transpired that neither the driver nor his department had bothered to secure bail before arrest even though the incident had taken place on November 26 and the FIR had been lodged immediately, he said.

The driver applied for bail before arrest after nearly five weeks of the incident on January 4, 2006, and compromised with the victims’ heirs only after the Senate body started the probe, he said.

Meanwhile, the FWO has denied that it had any hand in the death of the driver.