MULTAN, Jan 5: An alleged gambler went into a brief coma never to wake again after a police team tortured him in Jatoi area of Muzaffargarh district on Friday. Reports reaching here revealed that a police team, headed by sub-inspectors Ashiq Husain and Muhammad Ramzan Gopang, raided a gambling spot in fields near Wasti Ganwan (Jatoi). All nine people sitting there took to the heels and the police chased them and arrested Abdul Rasheed Ganwan, about 40.

The officials started beating him so much so that he suffered injuries and then left him unconscious in the fields. He breathed his last when his relatives were taking him to hospital.

Anguished by the police action, the deceased’s heirs placed the body in front of the Jatoi police station and blocked the road to traffic for one and-a-half hour. They chanted slogans against the police and vent out their ire beating their breasts. A number of people joined the protest and pelted the police station with stones and bricks. Some daredevils managed to enter the offices where they ransacked the furniture and official record.

The protesters started dispersing only on the interference of Azam Khan Ghazlani, a known politician, and Shahbazpur union council nazim Malik Ghulam Rasool Markand who were present there for the release of two gamblers.

Muhammad Iqbal, a nephew of deceased, told this correspondent that his uncle was irrigating his fields about a kilometre away from the gambling den when the police started beating him. During the police torture, he said, his uncle became unconscious but the officials continued thrashing him and then disappeared. He said his uncle was hale and hearty and he was neither asthmatic nor he had any heart problem.

“We are poor labourers having no political support, but we shall certainly throw the book at the officials responsible for killing an innocent man.”

He alleged that Azam Ghazlani and Ghulam Rasool were supporting the police as “they pressured us not to take any legal action against the law enforcers”.

Another relative of the deceased, Akmal Ganwan alleged that the police left Rasheed in the fields and stormed into his house shouting that some gamblers had taken refuge at the place. He said the mob protesting the labourer’s killing wanted to torch the police station, but he urged them not to do so.

“The deceased was suffering from heart problem and an attack became the cause of his death,” UN nazim Ghulam Rasool claimed while speaking to Dawn.

Jatoi police station SHO Syed Zahid Husain Shah denied the police torture of the victim, saying “we would have been behind the bars had we killed the person.”

Muzaffargarh DPO Rai Muhammad Tahir told Dawn that the deceased was one of the gamblers and fled among others. The police chased the suspects and caught Abdul Rasheed who fell down gasping for breath and asked his family to take him to hospital.

He said he had immediately ordered an inquiry which showed that the police had not tortured any one. “We even asked the heirs if they still believed that the police were the culprits, they could get an FIR registered with the police. However, they agreed that no mark of torture had been found on the body and there was no need to lodge any FIR”, he said. — Correspondent