Officials of Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) Civil Lines Division allegedly tortured Naimat Ali, a 35-years-old man, to death for his alleged involvement in providing shelter to kidnappers and murderers on Wednesday.
Residents of Natho Village, located in Hadyara Police Area, launched a massive protest against the killing of the cattle-owner by the CIA, forcing the Lahore police to make effort to control them.
Per details CIA officials, including ASI Shakeel Butt, two constables and two unidentified persons nabbed five men including Muhammad Shoaib, Shamas, Muhammad Anwar, Imran and Naimat Ali on January 13. Muhammad Shoaib and Shamas were released after investigation but the other two were held.
The charges against Naimat Ali were his alleged involvement in providing shelter to criminals who had kidnapped four children, and had also killed seven men in the Badami Bagh Area a few months ago.
According to the villagers, the officials brought critically injured Naimat Ali to his house on late Tuesday night. They said Ali had marks of torture on his body and the officials left immediately. Even though medicines had been administered, Ali passed away just after a few minutes.
Wednesday morning, more than 200 villagers lodged a protest against the CIA’s brutality. When the police tried to stop them, the protesters decided to take Ali’s body to the Punjab Assembly and started pelting the police officials with stones. Cantonment SP ordered deployment of more police officials at Canal Road near Mughalpura underpass while the police officials also conducted aerial firing and laid out barbed wires to stop the vehicles including tractor trolleys carrying protesters to The Mall Road.
However, some of the protesters were still able to teach the Press Club with Ali’s body and staged a sit-in in the middle of the road.
Heavy contingent of Cantonment Police followed them and cordoned them off. The protest lasted till 4 pm.
Fatima, mother of deceased Ali, while talking to reporters claimed that the police had picked her son up for no reason. She said she had not been allowed to see her son while he was in detention. “They never told us where he was detained and we were not even allowed to meet him,” she said, adding that her son, a father of 9, was innocent.
Shahnaz Bibi, Ali’s wife, said “my husband is innocent and police have killed him for no reason”.
Meanwhile some leaders of the villagers after hearing that Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif had taken notice of the matter and had ordered an enquiry under the supervision of DIG Maj (r) Mubashir Ullah, suggested to the heirs to move the body to Mayo Hospital morgue for autopsy in order to get the case registered against the police officials involved in it. Protestors disbursed after hearing this and submitted the body for autopsy. SP Cant Hashmat Kamal while talking to the reporters said Ali had not died in police custody and had died of a heart attack. Muneer, Ali’s brother in law, then filed a complaint with Hadyara Police over which police registered a case against five officials of CIA Police’s Civil Lines Division including ASI Shakil Butt. But no arrest had been made till the filing of this report.
