Rawalpindi-A team of officials of Police Station Jatli have allegedly tortured to death an alleged drug addict during a raid they carried out in Kharali, an area of Sohawa police station, informed reliable sources on Wednesday.
The deceased was identified as Ameer Afzal, sources said. According to sources, Kharali Village is considered to be a safe haven for drugs business and officials of Police Picket Amb (controlled by PS Jatli) used to conduct raids in the village to receive bribe from drug peddlers.
Sources also revealed that the deceased drug peddler was the nephew of Kharali based notorious drug peddler Littu.
The death of the citizen at the hands of police sparked unrest in the area as the parents and relatives of the deceased assembled at Mandra Chakwal Road for staging a protest demonstration apparently at a time when Regional Police Officer (RPO) Dr Suhail Habib Tajik was due to pass through the road to attend funeral prayer of cop Muhammad Ali who was martyred by a criminal in Saddar.
According to sources, a police team of Police Picket Amb was patrolling in a road leading to Kharali Village when they spotted Ameer Afzal coming from opposite side.
The police officials caught him and started beating him with punches, kicks and handles of riffles, sources mentioned.
Since the citizen was a drug addict suffering from epilepsy, he could not bear the torture of police and died on the spot, sources said.
The police team escaped from the scene while leaving dead body unattended on the road. Some eyewitnesses alerted the locals and Sohawa police about the occurrence of incident, they said.
Sources added the relatives of deceased and other area people took the dead body to Mandra Chakwal Road where they staged a protest demonstration against the brutality of Jatli police. Officers of PS Sohawa also arrived at the scene and collected information from the eyewitnesses, they said.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Police (SP) Saddar Division Rai Mazhar, following directions of City Police Officer (CPO) Muhammad Ahsan Younas, rushed to the spot and negotiated with the protestors barring them from blocking road.
SP assured protestors prompt action would be taken against police officials involved in the crime.
When contacted, SP Rai Mazhar confined the occurrence of incident. He said he had negotiated with heirs and other protestors and assured them of justice.
“We will send dead body for autopsy in hospital and if the doctors declared torture on Ameer Afzal by cops then case will be registered against them,” SP said.
He said no one would be allowed to take Law into hands and responsibility of police is to save the lives of citizens.