[Pak-Media] Follow up story and editorial on Punjab Police brutality

Dear all,
The police brutality committed against innocent citizens, apart from the
brutality against my son Mahmood Rahman and myself, (Read below mail and DT
report of 3rd September and follow up story) we the Human Rights Defenders
would request all to join us in a sustained campaign using this incident as
a marker to highlight that no one is safe from police brutality no matter
what your standing in society may be. If this can happen to me and my family
imagine what happens to the ordinary citizen who have no powerful or social
contacts.

As a first step we have planned to hold a protest meeting at Liberty
Roundabout on Sunday 9th September at 5 pm. We would like to request all to
mobilize as many people as possible because if you continue to shrug this
inhuman attitude off as if you would never face such State brutality you
will only be encouraging them to continue.

In solidarity

----------------------------------------------------
Sheikh Asad Rahman
Executive Director
Sungi Development Foundation
House No. 303, Street No. 77, G-9/3,
Islamabad-Pakistan
Tel:     +92-51-2282481-4
Fax:    +92-51-2282485
Mobile:+92-321-4389847
Email: asad.rahman@sungi.org
Web:    www.sungi.org

Subject: [Fwd: Follow up story and editorial on Punjab Police brutality]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------

Dear All,

Please find below the follow up story and editorial about the brutal torture
by Punjab Police on Asad Rehman (ED Sungi) and his son published in daily
times September 04.

Regards,
Mahmood Akhtar
Communication & Media Coordinator - Sungi

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C09%5C04%5Cstory_4-9-201
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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C09%5C04%5Cstory_4-9-201
2_pg3_1

Real face of police exposed in torture case

* SP suspends SI for torturing Daily Times Editor's brother and nephew

* Asks victims to lodge FIR against police officials

By Kashif Hussain

LAHORE: Interrogation of the interrogators on Monday has exposed the real
face of the Punjab Police rankers before the seniors regarding their tactics
to fix fake charges on innocent citizens, especially in the case of the
brutal torture of blameless victims of the DHA police, namely Asad Rahman
and Mahmood Rahman.

Superintendent Police Cantt (SP Cantt) Maroof Wahla, after conducting an
inquiry, suspended a police officer (Sub-Inspector Shabbir Raza) of the
Defence Police Station-B after finding him guilty of using false statements
against innocent citizens Asad Rahman and Mahmood Rahman for involving them
in a case of a car accident.

On last Saturday evening, police personnel under the command of
Sub-Inspector Shabbih Raza brutally beat up 60-year-old Asad Rahman, the
younger brother of Daily Times Editor Rashed Rahman as well as his nephew
Mahmood Rahman without reason or provocation after a road accident near
their residence in DHA.

During the inquiry into the police officers' involvement in brutal torture
of Asad Rahman and his son Mahmood Rahman, the SP Cantt found many
contradictions in their statements regarding handling the situation and the
treatment meted out to father and son, who were trying to rescue the
rickshaw driver injured in the accident.

On a query, SI Shabbir told the SP that he had taken the injured rickshaw
driver to National Hospital, Defence, personally and admitted him in the
Emergency Ward and later when he approached the hospital administration,
they informed him that the patient had been shifted to General Hospital. It
was interesting that when the SP asked him about the hospital admission
slip, he failed to provide any proof of either the admission slip of the
National Hospital emergency ward or the admission slip of the General
Hospital in his support of the 'fake' statement.

Replying to different queries of the SP, he (SI) also claimed that he had
arrested Mr Asad on some people's claim that 'this old man has hit the
rickshaw' and then he offered Mr Asad to reach the police station in his own
car but when he refused, he picked him up with his son and put them in the
police vehicle. When he was asked about the reason for the beating to them,
he become speechless, as he had no explanation for the serious injuries on
their bodies.

The SP Cantt also held separate inquiries into the role of the other four
police team members involved in this incident and all of them gave different
and contradictory answers to the same questions put to them. To prove
themselves justified in arresting and thrashing innocent citizens, one of
the constables appeared before the SP with a bandage and blood signs on his
hand, but when the SP had him remove the bandage, his lie was exposed.

Earlier, the SP Cantt ascertained the facts personally from victims Asad
Rahman and Mahmood Rahman, who appeared in his office along with Daily Times
Editor Rashed Rahman and informed him that they had no link to the accident
but had tried to help the injured rickshaw driver. The police officers
wrongly involved them in the case and tortured them.

After ascertaining the true facts, the SP immediately suspended the SI
Shabbih Raza and warned the constables in future to be careful not to
involve innocent citizens in cases and avoid false statements. He also
assured the victims that they should lodge an FIR against torture on them
and he would pursue the case in person. The victims had their medico-legal
reports regarding the injuries conducted but the FIR was not registered in
the concerned police station till the filing of this report.

It is pertinent to mention here that there was no record of admission of any
injured rickshaw driver in the National Hospital, General Hospital, Services
Hospital, Mayo Hospital or Jinnah Hospital. According to the administration
of all these hospitals, they had not admitted any injured person in
emergency or general wards from the DHA police in their respective
hospitals.

There is another serious concern that on Monday evening a policeman claiming
to be SI Sharif along with some other persons in plainclothes approached the
victims' house on private motorcycles. They tried to inquire about the
incident all over again but when they were informed that the SP Cantt Maroof
Wahla had already suspended the SI for his inhuman treatment of the innocent
victims, they ran away from the scene. The victims' family has informed the
SP about the fresh act of harassment by the policemen.

EDITORIAL : Police brutality

Our story on police brutality the other day reflects the culture and
practices of our police force ('DT Editor's brother, nephew innocent victims
of police brutality', Daily Times, September 3, 2012). The police detail
that brutally beat up Mr Asad Rahman and his son Mahmood Rahman without
cause was imbued with the same arrogance of untrammelled power that their
uniform provides. Was the incident an aberration, a one-off happening that
could be attributed to one officer and his subordinates' lack of civility,
proper legal and police procedure, etc? Or was it typical of the manner in
which our police approaches its duties? The police has yet to be transformed
from the culture that underlined its origins as a colonial force charged
with keeping their imperialist masters' interests uppermost. This implied,
as the reverse side of the coin, utmost contempt for the lowly 'natives'.
Those attitudes still permeate the ranks of a force that has no truck or
patience with notions of citizens' rights or confining the actions of the
police within the parameters of the law. Of course, like any large body of
(overwhelmingly) men, it is not monolithic. Fine people can be found within
its fold, especially in the officer corps. However, it has to be stated with
regret that such individuals are exceptions to the rule.

The colonial force, to ensure it remained within control, was under the
supervision of an executive magistracy. The colonialists were wise enough to
know that if the force was not put on a leash, there was a risk of it using
disproportionate force against the increasingly restive natives, which would
have political repercussions. Unfortunately, despite independence, the
'control' mechanism over the police became 'loose' to serve the interests of
the successive authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in our history. To top
it all, Musharraf's 'Plato', General Naqvi, amongst his other half-baked
reforms, authored the concept of 'autonomy' for the police by abolishing the
executive magistracy, that thin fig leaf of control, and helped institute
the Police Order 2002 to grant the police what turned out in practice to be
untrammelled and unaccountable power. The result since then has been to see
the police turning into a monster off the leash. The normal site of the
interface between the citizen and the police, the thana (police station), is
a place that evokes quaking fear amongst the populace. Torture, violence,
form the normal 'interrogation' techniques of the force. That leads to the
attitude that led to the incident mentioned above, where the police is
inclined to resort to violence first and ask questions later. A brutal,
corrupt police force is not only a terror for the citizen, there are any
number of legends and stories to prove that it is also the biggest criminal
force in the country. One version has it that no serious crime can be
committed in our society without the trail leading eventually to the police.
Unfortunately, for all the palaver about reform of the police over many
years, no government has felt it necessary to get to the root of the
problem. The police therefore feels free to carry on business as usual. The
losers in this respect are the citizen and any notion of a rules- or
law-based state and society.

It is time the political forces, civil society, the legal fraternity and all
those who care for this country raised their voice against a police that is
not only unable to curb crime, arguably it is the biggest factor in the
growth of lawlessness. And that is not even to mention its inability to do
anything meaningful against the threat of terrorism that afflicts state and
society today. Our overactive judiciary has its hands full with everything
except the demands of providing justice to the citizen and upholding his
rights enshrined in the constitution and law and underpinning any modern
civilised society. Unless a debate is conducted on the failings and sins of
omission and commission of the police by society at large, there can be no
hope for a rights-based dispensation that puts the citizen centre-stage and
can then justly claim the title of a democracy. *