• Bench orders ‘departmental inquiry’ into killing of three detainees in Shah Latif Town ‘encounter’ in February
• Observes that deaths of handcuffed suspects raise serious questions

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has warned that senior police officers will be personally held responsible for the misconduct of their subordinates if any incident of custodial death happens in future.

“This court, being the guardian of citizens’ rights, will not tolerate custodial deaths or any inaction by police officials. SSPs, DSPs, SHOs, and other officials of the concerned area shall be held personally responsible for the misconduct of their subordinates if such an incident happens,” ruled a single bench of the SHC.

The court disposed of a petition seeking an inquiry into the killing of three arrested suspects in an alleged encounter in February and formation of protocols for future to ensure safety of detained suspects and undertrial prisoners during raids.

The court ordered a departmental inquiry against the delinquent police officials and ruled that they must not be assigned operational duties and their movements be kept under strict vigilance.

“The Sindh Police, through the Inspector General of Police Sindh and the Additional IGP Karachi, shall ensure that all police officials act strictly in accordance with law, and they shall wear the police uniform while on police duty, and they shall not be exempted and proper vigilance shall be made,” read the order authored by Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon.

Petitioner Muhammad Ali moved the SHC and contended that his son Hamdan and two other persons, Jalil and Niaz, were in police custody when they were killed in an alleged police encounter on Feb 17 in Shah Latif Town.

He stated that as per the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), these arrested suspects were brought to a place for pointing out an alleged hideout of suspected terrorists who opened fire on the raiding team and detained suspects were killed during the crossfire.

Special Branch DIG Sheeraz Nazeer appeared before the court and submitted that a committee had been constituted under his supervision to investigate the matter, and that two meetings had been held so far, and the same were attended by the petitioner and his counsel as well.

He also informed the court that the inquiry was in progress and would be completed within one month, and if the involvement of the police officials concerned is found, the matter would be referred to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for further action.

After hearing the parties concerned and examining the material placed on record, the bench in its order noted that apparently, the deceased were in police custody when the alleged encounter took place and undisputedly, they were also handcuffed at the relevant time.

“Such circumstances prima facie raise serious questions regarding the manner in which the incident occurred and require a transparent and independent inquiry in accordance with the law,” it added.

The SHC also observed that the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act, 2022, protects persons in custody from torture, and the FIA has exclusive jurisdiction to investigate such offences, and the investigations were to be conducted under the supervision of the National Commission for Human Rights.

The bench ordered that a departmental inquiry be conducted against the delinquent officials involved in this incident under the supervision of the Karachi police chief, and the DIG Special Branch must complete the inquiry within one month.

It also said that if sufficient material was found, the matter must be referred to the FIA and the petitioner and officials concerned must be afforded an opportunity of hearing during the inquiry.

Meanwhile, the delinquent officials must not be assigned operational duties and their movements must remain under strict vigilance, it added.

The order further said, “Additional IGP Karachi shall personally supervise the working of SIU, CTD and other sensitive investigation police units to avoid custodial deaths as they become susceptible and are indulged in such state of affairs, as it has been urged. He shall ensure no such incident occurs in the future. The petitioner shall also be provided copies of the final report, post-mortem and medico-legal reports, and other relevant documents”.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2026