Torture of boy reveals police modus operandi

By Salman Aslam

THE police system developed to protect the life and property of citizens is in fact tailor-made to help the law enforcers exploit those in peril. Though the Lahore Police bosses award punishment to the culprits in uniform who subject innocent citizens to torture, the punishments are mere eyewash.

A boy who underwent a 10-day long torture not only revealed a brutal tale of police affairs but also exposed the mechanism of so-called monitoring system.

The scars of cigarettes on both sides of his shoulders, his swollen toes and fear in his mind were visible when the boy visited the Jang/The News offices to tell as to how he was tortured and forced by police to identify innocent people, trapped by police, for involvement in crimes.

Waqas, 16, son of Muhammad Iftikhar of Gohawa, was kidnapped by ASI Muhammad Yousaf and his men from the Batapur Police limits on August 2, 2010. The boy had reached there in a rickshaw of one Basharat to see his grandmother living in Behseen village, Batapur.

"The policemen beat me up to their satisfaction. They used to hit my soles with sticks, burnt my back with cigarettes and candles, pulled my nails out and hanged me upside down for hours," Waqas said while reconstructing the torture meted out to him. Batapur SHO Javed Dogar used to direct his subordinates about the torture techniques. The boy and his family could not find out the reason behind the police torture.

Later, ASI Muhammad Yousaf told Waqas that he would bring some people and the victim would identify them as his accomplices in an auto-rickshaw theft. Waqas identified no less than 12 strangers as his accomplices in the theft and policemen took bribe from the identified people for their release.

Waqas was kept in the police station as his the policemen knew that neither SP Cantt Jawad Qamar nor the SDPO would visit the police station.

Five days later, when the victim's father Iftikhar, a labourer, came to know about the detention of his son, he visited the police station but was not allowed a meeting with his son. He got his son released through a bailiff on August 12, 2010. The police registered a report in the daily diary to show the illegal confinement as lawful but still no FIR was registered about the rickshaw which police had recovered from the victim.

The district and sessions judge granted bail to Waqas and snubbed police who failed to give a logical reason of detention and torture. The Batapur Police had registered a case against the boy under Section 411. According to complainant Basharat Ali, a resident of Hajipura, North Cantt, he parked his rickshaw at a parking stand near Taj Bagh Scheme Gate No 3, Ghaziabad. On August 5, 2010, his rickshaw was missing from the parking stand. He started looking for his rickshaw and spotted Waqas while passing from the GT Road BRB Canal in his rickshaw. He raised alarm, upon which Waqas left the vehicle and disappeared in the nearby locality.

Most of the police officers, requesting anonymity, termed the contents of the FIR ridiculous and said that police registered such FIRs when did not have any other option to save their skin. When contacted, SHO Batapur Javed Dogar's gunman said that Sahib was offering a prayer. However, SP Cantt Jawad Qamar fully supported his subordinates and said that such torture was not possible in the present circumstances.

"Policemen refuse to torture even on our directions because of checks and accountability," he claimed, adding that he would look into the matter.

Later, the SP contacted this scribe and said that he was told by the SHO that the boy was caught on the tip-off by the complainant whose rickshaw was taken away from Harbanspura. The boy had also taken away a rickshaw of his paternal uncle who did not register a case against him, he added.

The victim' lawyer Malik Ejaz said that the complainant Busharat himself handed over his vehicle to Waqas, adding that Basharat wanted his vehicle impounded by police back without legal complications so he followed the police instructions and fabricated a fake story of his vehicle's theft. He said there had been no FIR registered pertaining to theft of both the rickshaws the SP claimed the boy Waqas had lifted.

The attitude of police is a testament to the fact as to how they have become desensitised to torture as they carried out the torture publicly and in police stations where the accused are forced to confess crimes. And if it is not so, this police stand by and watch the innocent being killed publicly as a spectator as happened in the Sialkot incident.