LAHORE, Oct 7: Torture victims go through mental distress months and in some cases years after they are released from police custody.

Five such victims, who were interviewed by this reporter, had painful ordeal to tell after spending hours or days in police custody.

Ahmed, a shopkeeper of Mozang, was on his way home on a motorcycle near the Miani Sahib graveyard when he was stopped at a picket. Though his motor registration papers were in order, police detained him for “being drunk.”

He was asked to give Rs 400 to arrange petrol for a vehicle that would carry him to a hospital for a medical examination. He was released next morning after doctors cleared him.

“It was the most horrible experience of my life,” Ahmad said. “I feel so tormented mentally when I recall the humiliation meted out to me.”

Ali, another victim, was on his way home on Temple Road with Rs 50,000 in cash in his pocket when he was halted at a picket on Lytton Road and searched thoroughly.

Finding the money, the police threatened to implicate him in a dacoity case. He was taken to the police station where he surrendered Rs 5,000 to save rest of the amount.

Ali said police had created a scene at the police station that he started feeling himself guilty. “I was so horrified that I could have surrendered the entire amount for my release.”

Zulifiqar Ali, a resident of Sharanwala Gate, said he dealt in liquor business. When he was picked up, he was subjected to the worst form of the physical torture. “Though I confessed to my crime, the police wanted me own some heroin trafficking cases.”

He said the police applied its “time-tested” methods of getting desired confession, like thrashing with a piece of leather, roll on legs, hang against a wall, throw insects inside trousers, summon family members of the accused and undress him before them and make the family stay there whole night.”

Zulfiqar said a week past by and the police tried their best to make him confess to the crime he had not committed.

When he suffered a heart attack, police took him to a hospital and later to the Lahore District Jail.

He said the memories of police torture still haunted him even after one year.

“I can’t perform my routine work as tortured parts of my body still pain.”

Talat Farooq of Shahkot said that he and his brother had a property dispute. He said his brother gave Rs 500 to a police constable who lifted him from his house and beat him severely.

Farooq tried to approach police high ups but no avail. He said he had left his house for he felt shattered and humiliated.

Police torture is not confined to police stations. There are private cells in different localities of the city being run by police.

In a recent case, a former Naseerabad SHO lifted a textile quota broker, Safdar, from a road. He broke his legs in a private torture cell at Gulshan-i-Ravi.

Safdar had a money dispute with a brother of the SHO.

“I may never recover from this agonising experience. He thrashed me with a Chittar and then broke one of my legs with a hammer blow,” added Safdar.