DERA GHAZI KHAN, Jan 18: Relatives have urged the chief justice of the Lahore High Court to order immediate arrest of the policemen who tortured a teenaged boy on Jan 2, lying unconscious since then.

They held a demonstration in front of the Dera Ghazi Press Club on Sunday and chanted slogans against the Choti Zaireen police. They told newsmen that 18-year-old Saifullah Ghangla was picked up by police officials from a snooker club of Choti Zaireen on Jan 2 without any justification and subjected to severe torture.

The police took Saif to the Choti Zaireen Rural Health Centre when he fell unconscious. He was referred to Dera Ghazi Khan DHQ Hospital from where relatives shifted him to the Nishtar Hospital in Multan.

Relatives said that Saif had been unconscious since Jan 2. They said the doctors of the Choti Zaireen RHC and Dera Ghazi Khan DHQ Hospital did not mention in their reports that the boy was tortured.

Nishtar Hospital authorities constituted a medical board. Headed by Dr Muhammad Zafar Yasin, the board comprise Assistant Professor of Surgery Dr Akmal Sahu and Dr Mushtaq Ahmed Chaudhry.

Dr Sahu was later replaced by Dr Mustafa Kamal Pasha because the former had "to go to Faisalabad to conduct MBBS final professional examination there." The board examined Saif on Jan 9 and said in its report: "the person is unconscious... on ventilator and cardiac monitor... all injuries on his body by blunt weapon..."

Dr Akmal Sahu, however, wrote: "No sign of external violence".

Choti Zaireen police registered a case against its five officials on the report of the station house officer Iqbal Chanida under Section 337-K/342 on Jan 4.

The FIR said: "Sub-Inspector Azhar Hussain along with Atta Shah, Rafiq, Farooq and Ghulam Ali tortured Saifullah and during torture he went into coma." No accused has been arrested so far.