Inspector General of Punjab Police Arif Nawaz assured the Senate Committee on Interior that the police officers
involved in the custodial death of suspected ATM robber Salahuddin will be charged for their crimes.

Briefing the Senate panel on the alleged robber’s death in police custody, he said Salahuddin’s body would be exhumed on a request by his father to conduct his autopsy afresh.

The IG said Salahuddin died during interrogation in police custody and added a case was registered against the SHO concerned and other police officers following his death.

Senator Rehman Malik, who is the committee’s chairperson, said the police were not permitted to kill a suspect in their custody, no matter how grave an offence is. “Such incidents not only defame the police but
also erode people’s trust in [the force],” he added.

The station house officer (SHO) and two investigation officers of the City-A-Division Police Station have been nominated in the murder case of the ATM robber.

After Salahuddin's death in Rahim Yar Khan, the same week saw another death in police custody, this time of a Christian man in Lahore, Aamir Masih. Reports also showed that police in Vehari had taken and tortured a woman in a "private torture cell", also in the same week.

The Punjab Police is struggling to improve its reputation in the days since, and has been under fire for the lack of finding suspects in Kasur.