ISLAMABAD, June 21: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Sindh police to take effective action to abolish torture cells allegedly being operated by some police officials.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad directed the inspector general of Sindh police to immediately undertake a comprehensive survey of all such cells in the province.

The bench was told that some police officers, at the behest of influential feudalists, operated private cells where innocent citizens were kept in illegal confinement.

The court was hearing a complaint of one Naeem Aarain alleging that he had been kidnapped, detained and tortured by area police in a private torture cell. He also informed the bench that each of the accused police officials was now ready to pay him Rs500,000 as compensation.

He submitted that police were pressurising him to withdraw cases against them and had even threatened him that women of his family would be kidnapped. He said that he had been forced to shift half of his family to Jhelum.

The CJ directed the Government of Sindh through Advocate General Sindh Anwar Mansoor Anwer to provide protection to Naeem Arain and his family.

Deputy Inspector General Mirpurkhas Saleemullah Khan, who was present on court notice, informed the bench that 10 police officers, including four SHOs who had been running torture cells in Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Jhole, had been arrested and some of them had even been dismissed.

However, the DIG submitted, one of the accused, SHOs Lakhmir Chand, had escaped and he was hiding somewhere along the Pakistan-India border.

The bench criticised the conduct of IG Sindh and observed that he should have shown respect to the apex court in connection with the case of abduction of nine family members of peasant Munnu Bheel by feudal lord Abdul Rehman Marri.

“Why is the IG playing with courts? Probably he considers himself above the law,” the CJ observed.