Man beaten to death had cheated his assaulter, claim police

A day after a man was killed by the owner of a mobile phone shop and another man, the police registered a murder case against the arrested suspects on Sunday.

Fifty-year-old Ghulam Sarwar, son of Hussain Buksh was allegedly beaten up to death on Saturday by the mobile phone shop owner, Rana Saleem, and his companion, Uzair Khan, a policeman serving at the Counter-Terrorism Department. The incident took place near Cantonment Station within the limits of the Frere police station.

The police registered an FIR No. 166\18 on Sunday under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code on behalf of the victim’s widow, Mumtaz Bibi.

In her statement to the police, the complainant stated that her husband was not a robber. She claimed that the shop owner and his policeman friend killed her husband while falsely accusing him of being a robber.

“My husband had told me about a mobile phone which he mistakenly brought to home from a mobile shop,” she claimed. “He wanted to give it back to the shop owner and phoned me to bring the mobile phone to the shop.”

The widow said when she went to the market, she was informed that her husband was at the Frere police station. Upon reaching the police station, she handed the mobile phone over to the accused policeman and asked him to allow her to meet her husband, however, she was told to wait for a few hours for that.

The complainant claimed that as she waited at the police station to see her husband, some cops at the police station started misbehaving with her and asked her to pay Rs50, 000 as bribe. Later, she received a phone call from a policeman who informed her about her husband’s death.

“I received a phone call from a policeman who told me that my husband had died and his body was at Jinnah hospital,” she explained. The widow demanded that the police high-ups take stern action against those involved in her husband’s killing as well as those who misbehaved with her and demanded bribe.

Frere SHO Chaudhry Saeed Akhtar said Sarwar died of head injuries. “Basically, the deceased did not snatch or steal a mobile phone from the shop but he cheated another citizen,” the officer claimed.

“The mobile phone was purchased by another person who had to fly for Saudi Arabia and the deceased received the phone from the shop on the basis of a receipt, which the shop owner had given to the purchaser,” the SHO said, adding that the real owner of the phone left the country without the phone.

According to the SHO, the situation turned violent when the shop owner found the deceased a few days later and demanded the mobile phone. The deceased, however, denied having it in his possession, which prompted the shop owner and his friend to beat him up, causing his death.