Cops kidnap, implicate govt official in drug-trafficking case

PESHAWAR: In a horrible incident of police high-handedness in the provincial capital, three cops allegedly kidnapped a government official from the posh Hayatabad locality, kept him hostage for hours and let him go after placing heroin in his car to implicate him in a drug-trafficking case, a source told The News.

The incident caused concern among the general public as they were worried the once reformed police force has once again started the old abhorrent tactics of abducting and implicating innocent people in false cases to mint money and settle personal scores.

The police had to take notice of the incident after the Institute of Kidney Diseases in Hayatabad, where the victim Habibullah worked as personal assistant to the director, raised the issue. Habibullah had been granted bail by the local court a couple of days after his arrest as the case against him was weak and full of flaws.

When Habibullah lodged a complaint with the senior cops, police officials are now saying they have traced the gang involved in the incident and arrested its members, including policemen, a nurse and civilians.

The victim told The News that the incident happened on July 25 when he left his rented house in Phase-4 Hayatabad for office in his car at around 8:15 am. “Three armed men in uniform rushed towards my car and introduced themselves as officials of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD). They took control of my car, blindfolded me and snatched my cellular phone. They claimed senior CTD officials had directed them to shift me to the head office,” Habibullah told The News. “They were talking to someone on phone constantly. Once they said that they had crossed the Karkhano Phatak. I was taken to a house for some time before I was told it was a misunderstanding and I had been cleared. On the way back, the three men disembarked from the car at some distance one by one and told me to open my eyes after a few minutes,” Habibullah recalled. He added when he opened his eyes he was alone in the car.

“I asked a local about the location and he told me I was in Khyber, hardly few hundred meters from the Karkhano checkpost. I reached the checkpost to inform the cops about what had happened to me but they were already waiting for me,” Habibullah said. He maintained that the cops at Karkhano checkpost rushed towards his car, pointed their guns at him, and dragged him out of the vehicle.

“I told them I had been kidnapped, but they humiliated me since they were told something else by the three men who had earlier taken me away. They later claimed to have recovered drugs from my car as per the plan,” Habibullah recalled. “I was shocked and wondered as to why all this happened to him,” he added. His photo and details were immediately released to the media and he was shifted to the lock-up after lodging of the case. A large number of his colleagues from the Institute of Kidney Diseases came to the police station and told the cops it was a conspiracy against Habibullah. The police, however, didn’t listen to anyone.

Habibullah’s colleagues also appeared in the court during the first hearing. The court granted Habibullah bail after listening to the arguments of his colleagues. “I have lodged a complaint with the police authorities. I explained that my ordeal started when my female colleague Shahida and her husband started threatening me following her suspension by senior officials. The fact is that I draft whatever orders I receive from my seniors. I have nothing to do with suspension or any other action,” Habibullah said. The victim in an application to the top police officials mentioned that apart from Shahida and her husband Luqman, policemen Ihsan, Samandar and Raghib, and two other people Shafiq and Saifur were involved in his kidnapping and placing heroin in his car to lodge a false case against him.

“We have lodged a case and arrested all the characters involved in the whole episode. There is no place for scoundrels in the police force,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Operations, Zahoor Babar Afridi told The News. He admitted that such incidents earn bad name for the image of the force. “I have taken all of them to the task. The working out of the case shows there is no place for criminal elements in our force,” he added.