Police does not own the dead

It’s Monday morning. A corpse lies by the roadside on the canal while two groups of policemen; one from Harbanspura Police Station and the other from Mughalpura Police Station, are seen quarreling over it. Rescue 1122 officials, who recovered the body out of the canal, have been waiting for four hours for the police to decide in whose precincts the body was found. This corpse is of Mohammad Rizwan, an Excise and Taxation Department official and resident of Fazal Park, Mughalpura, who was reportedly tortured to death in police custody and later dumped in the canal.

This incident is certainly not one of its kind where Pakistan Today caught the policemen reflecting out loud through their actions that the ‘police does not own the dead!’

From claiming the responsibility of a dead body to the case filing of an ordinary theft incident, the policemen of the metropolitan try their best to justify to the complainant that the incident just did not occur in their area. “It’s not our case. You should visit the adjoining police station,” is the regular response.

It was another such case of ‘area ownership’ that Pakistan Today witnessed when Rizwan’s body was found on Monday.

Ramzan, the victim’s younger brother, narrates that it was March 27, when around 10.30pm they heard a knock on the door. It was the Harbanspura police.

He said that ASI Murtaza, constables Nasir, Kamran, Fazlur Rehman, Shafaqat Ali and an unidentified official barged in the house, arrested Rizwan and started demanding money from the family. Ramzan and his mother resisted Rizwan’s arrest and enquired as to why were they arresting Rizwan and why should they give money.

“What for?” was their repeated question to which the police did not reply and dragged the victim to the police station.

Later, when the victim’s brother approached the Harbanspura Police Station and enquired about his brother, the police brushed him out of the station without a response.

It was on April 1, Monday morning, when the victim’s brother finally got to know about his brother. In the morgue, he laid dead, waiting for his family to claim him.

The victim’s brother said that he witnessed torture scars on his brother’s body which clearly indicated that he was tortured in police custody. He claims that Harbanspura Police Station SHO Asif Zulfiqar also knew about the incident and was involved in his brother’s murder.

Mourning at the loss of his brother, Ramzan told Pakistan Today that earlier his brother had had a quarrel with his wife Saba when she underwent an abortion. He said Saba had left the house after the quarrel and the victim’s in-laws had been giving life threats since then. Ramzan suspects that it was his brother’s in-laws who, in connivance with the police, planned and executed the murder.

This was just another story…

Sources report that two more men, Waseem Arif Shamu and Zafar were also arrested by the same squad that night.

Sources report that it was police’s regular practice to quarrel over claiming the responsibility of various crimes that occur in different parts of the city. They alleged that the police often murdered men, on request of ‘the influential’ or on the sight of some coppers, later discretely doing away with the bodies.

Irfan, a resident, told Pakistan Today that in a similar case a corpse was found in River Ravi a few days ago and there too, the policemen of the two adjoining police stations were seen quarreling over the precincts in which the body was found. He said that when the media reported the event, the high-ups took notice of the issue and finally the body was taken by one of the parties.

In the latest incident under discussion, however, when Lahore CCPO Mohammad Amlaish came to know about the incident, the Mughalpura police finally took charge of Rizwan’s corpse and shifted it to the morgue for an autopsy. The Mughalpura police also registered an FIR on charges of kidnapping and murder against the ASI and the other accused police personnel and started an investigation.

It was then on Tuesday when the CCPO told Pakistan Today that they have arrested the four constables but the ASI managed to escape. He said the police was searching for the ASI and were raiding various areas.

While talking to Pakistan Today, the spokesperson of the Punjab IGP said that they had taken notice of the issue and the responsible will be arrested soon and will be treated as per law.