CHAKWAL, June 22: Power riots that rocked Chakwal last Monday in terms of loss to public property appeared to have more dreadful outcomes in the offing.
A man ended his life on Friday few hours after police raided his house to arrest his brother who was among the 50 of the booked over the incident.
According to details, Saddar police stormed the house of Mehrban Bashir Thursday night to arrest him over the charges of torching police van and attacking police during the violent protests. However, Mehrban was not in the house. On this, police tried to arrest one of his cousins and his younger brother, Farhan Bashir.
Some villagers who witnessed the raid told Dawn that Mehrban’s cousin nicknamed as Toti was an abnormal person and police manhandled the women in the house when they tried to resist the arrests.
“The women pleaded them by putting their headscarves under the feet of the SHO Chaudhry Asar Ali crying out that both had nothing to do with the riots,” an eyewitness said. “However, after desperate pleading by women the police dropped the idea of arresting them,” he added.
According a neighbour, 25-year-old Farhan went to the nearby fields early Friday morning where he committed suicide. As a villager noticed the body of Farhan hanging from a tree, trauma gripped the whole village and people rushed to the scene.
The SHO along with a police party also hurried to the spot. On seeing police, the villagers started chanting slogans against them and refused to allow them take the body off the tree. They demanded the District Police Officer should himself come to the spot.
After a while, DSP Abdul Saleem reached there and tried to cool down the villagers but to no avail. The protest by the villagers forced the DPO Kashif Mushtaq Kanju to visit the spot in person.
After the DPO ensured them that strict legal action would be taken against the SHO and other cops who raided the house and manhandled the family, people allowed the dead body to be shifted to District Headquarters (DHQ) hospital.
A five-member medical board has been set up for conducting autopsy. Till the filing of this report the medical board had not finalised its findings.
Spokesperson for Chakwal police Raja Zohaib confirmed to Dawn, “Farhan committed suicide after getting disheartened by the police raid and the insult it brought to the family.”
He claimed the SHO and all the cops involved in the raid had already been suspended and strict legal action would be taken against the accused.—A Correspondent