Rawalpindi    -   Dhudhial police allegedly stormed into an under construction housing colony of minorities and placed the labourers under severe torture besides uprooting their tents and using foul language, informed reliable sources on Thursday.

The raiding police party also snatched cash and mobile phones from the poor labourers and harassed women and children, they said. The SHO Police Station (PS) Dhudial Inspector Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi also passed derogatory remarks when the poor labourers visited police station to lodge complaint against the cops involved in torturing and snatching money from them, they said.

According to details, a police raiding party went to Dr Bishop Joesph Arshad Colony in precinct of PS Dhudial during night and started beating the labourers belonging to a minority community sleeping in their tents. The cops abused the labourers and harassed their women besides snatching cash and mobile phones of the labourers. 

Later, a group of labourers went to PS Dhudhial (Chakwal) to lodge complaint against illegal police raid but the SHO Inspector Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi had not only mishandled and humiliated them but also passed derogatory remarks. Some of the labourers recorded the acts of SHO in mobile phones when cops once again attacked them and snatched their mobile phones, they said.

A victim told The Nation on condition of anonymity that police often conduct raids during night in their colony and use to harass and torture them.

“We are very poor and have no place to take refuge but this colony, where our bishop is favouring us by building house of 2.5 and 3 marlas for us,” he said adding that they are absolutely in surprise as to why police are after them. “We have no roof to hide our families and that’s why we are living in tents. The whole day we build our houses and in the night we take rest but police have made our lives hell,” said another victim. He said police harass us on daily basis.

SHO PS Dhudial Inspector Abdul Qayyum Niazi, when contacted by The Nation, was reluctant to offer his comments and disconnected his cell phone by saying, “The matter was probed and resolved by SDPO Saddar Cirlce Waqar Azeem.”

This correspondent approached spokesman to RPO Rawalpindi Region Imran Ahmer to know the version of top cop over the issue. He said police had conducted a search operation in the locality and no such incident took place.