ISLAMABAD: An inquiry against a police officer, who allegedly demanded Rs 35,000 from a complainant just to register a first information report (FIR), has been ordered by Islamabad’s highest officer in authority, media reports have said.
According to the complainant, ASI Iftikhar Ali of Khana police station had refused to entertain their complaint until they paid him.
Sheikh Shafeeq, a contractor, who had taken the injured labourer to the police station to file a complaint said, “We went to the police station on March 18 after a labourer was beaten and injured by a group of men over a land dispute. However, ASI Iftikhar asked for Rs15,000 just to accept our application.”
The contractor added that the labourer was then sent to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) to obtain a medico-legal report by the officer but not before he took Rs15,000.
Shafeeq further alleged that the officer then demanded more money to further the process of the application.
“Even after receiving our application and completing a medical examination at Pims, he would not register the FIR and arrest the suspects. We had to pay him another Rs 20,000 so that he would get the medical report and register an FIR.”
The FIR was finally registered on March 30, almost 12 days after the initial complaint by Shafeeq.
The complainants, interestingly, commented that they did not mind the bribe. However, what irked them was the fact that the officer did nothing to arrest the suspects, even after such a large payout.
This led him to believe that the officer may have even accepted a larger bribe from the suspects for not arresting them.
As a result, he approached the office of the Inspector General of Police DR Sultan Azam Temuri and lodged a complaint against ASI Ali for inaction and not investigatin the case on merit, even after accepting the bribe.