Lawyers in Chitral protest torture of colleague

CHITRAL: The lawyers in upper and lower Chitral on Thursday stayed away from court proceedings to condemn the torture on a senior colleague by police in Booni.

The lawyer community took out a protest demonstration from Ataliq Chowk to the Chitral Press Club. They chanted slogans against the provincial government and police. Addressing a press conference, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council member Abdul Wali Khan advocate, DBA Lower Chitral president Khurshid Hussain Mughal, Upper Chitral president Intizar Ali Khan, Tehsil Darosh president Ikramullah and others said that the lawyer fraternity was trying to adopt peaceful ways and means instead of taking law into their own hands. They alleged that the SDPO upper Chitral along with his guards tortured senior lawyer Syed Burhan Shah. They said the senior cop had been posted in Chitral under punishment for using tactics like that of Rao Anwar in Karachi.

They termed the inquiry initiated against the cop as a ridiculous and unacceptable, saying how such inquiry could be effective when he had not yet been suspended. “The cop has not only misbehaved with the senior lawyer but also subjected him to severe torture,” Abdul Wali Khan resented, adding that the district police officer categorically refused to do anything against the cop when he was approached.

They condemned the government for posting under-punishment officers in Chitral district for humiliating and insulting the peace-loving and law-abiding citizens. They vowed to continue the strike until and unless the government did not take any step against him. They said the provincial government had been building castles in the air to praise the KP police but in fact, the police had been involved in state terrorism across the province.