Treatment of people by police horrible: LHC

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has ruled that no one is above the law, including the police functionaries, but the police are bent upon treating people with appalling horrors and torture ignoring the fact that they are being paid from the taxpayers’ money.

Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed gave these remarks while setting at liberty detainees who were recovery from illegal detention of Faislabad police where they were subjected to severe torture.      

The court observed in its order: “A copy of this petition along with bailiff’s report be transmitted to City Police Officer Faisalabad; he shall remind himself that as a functionary of the state, paid by the public exchequer, he owes it to the taxpayers that they are dealt with under due process of law and not by the appalling horrors of brazen authority. No one is above the law and so are the police officials, therefore, the city police officer shall hold an inquiry into alleged illegal detention as well as torture.”

The court further directed the CPO that in case police officials were found at fault, they should be proceeded against and the CPO should share the contemplated action against the delinquents with the LHC registrar office before end of the month.

Earlier, the bailiff producedthree detainees Bilal, Mohsin Ali and Tanvir before the court and submitted his report. He stated that they were found in captivity at police station Garh, Faisalabad district, without their arrest incorporated in the online daily dairy. Upon query, one of the detainees, Tanvir, disclosed to the bailiff that they had been kept at the police station for the past 12 days and tortured as well. The bailiff was denied access to the police file on the ground that the same was being held by the investigating officer who had gone out of the police station to conduct a raid. The position taken by the station house officer (SHO) was far from being plausible; he had admitted that the detainees were not named in the crime report. According to him, they were arrested on the basis of statements of two witnesses, who claimed to have overheard them in a makeshift countryside hotel while discussing their guilt with each other.The court released the detainees and directed them to appear before the sessions judge, Faisalabad, for further proceedings.