Trader accuses police of snatching cash

LAHORE
A band of policemen, including an ASI of Gulberg police station, allegedly deprived a businessman of Rs57,000 and threatened him that they would kill him if he tried to escape or contact anyone for help.
On March 12, a young businessman, Mudassar, collected cash from his shop in Johar Town and went to a gym near Gaddafi Stadium for exercise. As he was on his way back to his residence at 7/5E Allauddin Road Cantt, four armed men riding a black car signalled him to stop near Hussain Chowk. Mudassar assuming them as robbers and kidnappers sped up his car. The men kept on following him. The victim instead of going to his home turned his car to his nearby shop in Gulberg. The moment he reached there, parked his car and was about to enter the building, when the men approached him. They stormed out of their car and one of them warned him to stop otherwise he would open fire. Mudassar froze on the spot. They pushed him aside. One of them, who was later identified as ASI Zulfiqar, hurled a stream of abuses at him and repeatedly smacked his face hard. He threatened him that they would kill him if he tried to escape or contact anyone for help.
The ASI called the police personnel carrier. Mudassar was bundled into the police vehicle which took two rounds of Zahoor Elahi Road and later reached where Mudassar had parked his car. The ASI Zulfiqar kept cash Rs57,000 he had recovered from him and returned the car keys and his cell phone. He warned him that he would implicate him in various cases of heinous nature if he approached the high officials for justice.
‘It was very difficult to establish whether they were policemen or robbers as they were in a private car and clad in plainclothes. So I tried to flee the scene. They chased me and terrorised me by brandishing their weapons, flashing car’s headlights and honking horns. I just wanted to reach a safe place so that they could not hurt or kidnap me,’ Mudassar recalled.
He said the first allegation the ASI had levelled against him was that he was drunk while the fact was that the ASI Zulfiqar and his accomplices were under the influence. Later, the ASI claimed that the car being used by him was a stolen vehicle. Last but not the least, the ASI declared him a terrorist and asked him to show his passport as he refused to accept his national identity card as proof of his identity.
When contacted, ASI Zulfiqar denied all the allegations saying that he had stopped the victim’s car for having tinted glasses. Rather than stopping, he fled the scene, he said and added that he let him go after the verification of his identity and vehicle’s ownership. When asked whether or not he and his accomplices were in police uniform at the time of the incident, he had no answer.