FAISALABAD, May 31: A government schoolteacher, along with her mother, aunts and two children, has threatened to observe hunger strike in front of the IGP's office against police who, she said, were patronizing culprits.

Speaking at a news conference here on Monday, Shahida Sarwar alleged that Jaranwala police, in league with killers of members of her family, was removing vital evidence after getting bribe from her opponent Naseeb Dogar, an inspector of the Anti-Corruption Establishment, Toba Tek Singh, to stop them from not pursuing murder cases registered against Naseeb's family.

On Oct 4, 1999, she said, Naseeb's brother Akram along with Muhammad Ikram, Rafaqat and Saeed shot dead her father, Prof Ghulam Sarwar, and uncle Muhammad Saeed without any reason. The challan of the case was moved to court, which awarded death sentence to Ikram and Akram, she said.

She further told newsmen that relatives of the accused forced her family to withdraw the case, but to no avail. She said Saeed, the co-accused in the double murder case, and his accomplices showered her house with bullets on April 28, killing her aunt and injuring a cousin.

Thereafter, she said, they got a case registered with the area police against the accused but no arrest had been made so far. According to the teacher, Naseeb hatched a conspiracy with Jaranwala SHO Majeed Gujjar and a police party on May 22 and disgraced the women and tortured male members of her family, besides looting valuables.

She said the police took her brother Naeem, a law student, to the police station and tortured him. "We lodged a formal complaint of illegal detention with the sessions court, which deputed a bailiff and recovered Naeem from illegal custody."

Naeem was tortured and forced by the police to sign a paper of reconciliation in the double murder case. She threatened that the female members of her family and children would observe hunger strike if the police did not arrest the nominated accused at the earliest.