Family seeks justice as under-trial prisoner dies

The family of an under-trial prisoner (UTP) who was arrested by Chakiwara police in August 2017 and died during treatment at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) on Thursday night has demanded justice, alleging that he died from torture.

Arif Hameed, son of Essa, had been rushed to the JPMC from the Malir district prison in emergency in the afternoon on the advice of the prison’s medical officer. JPMC Additional Police Surgeon (APS) Dr Sheeraz Ahmed told The News that Hameed was brought after he complained of low blood pressure, but he died within four hours of his admission to the hospital.

He said a postmortem examination was performed under the supervision of a judicial magistrate on Friday, and the cause of death had been preserved. He said there was no sign of torture on any part of his body.

Hameed’s brother raised the accusing finger at the prison’s authorities and claimed that his brother died after he was tortured by prison officials. He demanded of Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair and Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to order a probe and take action against the jail officials.

Provincial prisons chief Nusrat Hussain Mangan rejected the torture allegation, and said medico-legal examiners who performed the autopsy had confirmed that there was no sign of torture on any part of the corpse. He added that the MLOs in their report had also confirmed that Hameed was a heroin addict, and his lungs had stopped functioning due to excessive use of drugs.

Report submitted

The superintendent of the Malir district prison submitted a report to the provincial prisons chief. According to his report, Hameed was remanded to the prison by a civil judge and the judicial magistrate South-V in an FIR registered at the Chakiwara police station against him under section 6/9-C of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, on August 19, 2017.

He claimed that Hameed was initially sent to the Rehabilitation Barrack for treatment by the prison’s medical officer as he was heroin addict. He maintained that the prisoner was shifted to Barrack-VI, Cricle-IV, on August 28, 2017, and on September 11, 2017, he was shifted back from Circle-IV to Circle-VI.