Man tortured to death ‘in custody’

A man who was in the illegal custody of Merwala check-post of in the area of the Jatoi Police Station died of alleged police torture on Tuesday.

After the custodial death, six police officials, including a sub-inspector, were booked in a murder case and they were suspended from service.

Muhammad Safdar, a resident of Rampur, was taken into custody by the Jatoi police five days back; however, his arrest was not registered. His body was found hanging in the lock-up of the check-post in the morning.

Safdar’s family alleged that police subjected him to severe torture during interrogation and killed him. His body was shifted to hospital for a post-mortem. The police claimed that Safdar committed suicide by hanging himself and that he was on remand in a robbery case.

A murder case was registered against the suspected policemen on complaint of the deceased’s family.

DPO Syed Raza Safdar Kazmi suspended Sub-Inspector Imam Bakhsh Naveed with five other police officials from service. He said action would be taken against the officials if the allegations of torture proved against them. He formed a committee to probe the incident.

AIG South Punjab Maqsoodul Hasan also sought an inquiry report from RPO Sajjad Hussain.

SCAMMED: A businessman was scammed of Rs0.8m by conmen with a counterfeit bill of USD 1m.

According to the police, Arshad Taqi, a filling station owner in the Mahmood Kot area of Kot Addu, told the police three suspects, Aamir Ahmed, Abdul Razzaq and Juma Khan, came to his petrol pump and showed him a currency bill 1m USD and its related documents.

They told him that the USD bill was worth Rs280m but they would sell it in exchange of Rs100m. Taqi was tricked into paying them an advance amount of Rs0.8m. He later found out the bill was fake. A case was registered against three suspects on the complaint of Taqi.

(Dawn)