ISLAMABAD: Police in Pakistan’s federal capital suspended one of its officials on Saturday after a local lawyer visiting his office accused him of torturing a citizen who had earlier been taken into custody and brought to the precinct in the G-9 neighborhood of the city.
The lawyer, Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, said in a Twitter post she was visiting the police station when she “heard screams” from one of the rooms where she found the Station House Officer (SHO) beating a man on the floor.
In a video recorded at the SHO’s office, she said it was a case of “custodial torture” while maintaining in another Twitter post that the man inflicting violence on the unknown citizen had “no business being on the police force.”
“The SHO has been suspended on the instructions of the federal interior minister to ensure a fair inquiry into the incident of torture against a citizen at the Karachi Company Police Station,” the police announced on the social media website on Saturday. “Strict action will be taken if [the SHO is] found guilty. Any law enforcer found involved in any illegal activity will not be tolerated.”
Custodial torture is not uncommon in Pakistan where police are widely believed to use it to obtain confessions.
In the recent case, the suspended SHO asked the lawyer how the issue was relevant to her after she challenged him for allegedly torturing the citizen.
