Justice for the unjust

Karachi
As the sight of police officials brazenly accepting bribes from citizens became too ordinary to catch anyone by surprise, demanding money to fake records and replace criminals with those already illegally detained can be counted among the zillion tricks that the officials entrusted with the safety of people seem to have up their sleeves.
Two police officers, Assistant Sub-Inspectors (ASIs) Yaseen Bhutto and Ramazan Thand, were dismissed from duty by Senior Superintendent Police and Director General Crime Branch (II) Dr Muhammad Abbas Rizvi on April 14 after they were found to have freed a drug peddler, Syed Irfan Shah, and replaced him with Roshan Chandio, a man already under detention, all for a payment of Rs20 million by Shah.
It was after a petition pertaining to the illegal detention of Chandio was filed by his brother with the Sindh High Court (SHC) that a trial was initiated. His brother maintains that Chandio was kidnapped by police officials on January 28 and his whereabouts had since been unknown.
The court had ordered Sindh Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ghulam Hyder Jamali to initiate an inquiry into the matter.
The SHC, directing the subordinate court concerned to submit a report regarding the details and apprehension of the actual accused and his confinement, revealed that Shah was released by the two police officers after receiving a sum of Rs20 million.
On finding the police officers guilty, SSP Rizvi who had led the inquiry issued show cause notices to the officers, however, they were later dismissed after failing to respond to the notices.
‘The inquiry concluded that the two accused police officers had illegally picked up an innocent citizen, Roshan Chandio, and confined him in place of a man accused of drug peddling, Syed Irfan Shah.’
The incident took place after Rangers personnel arrested Shah and his associates Abdul Qadir, Shahbaz, Meer Chakar and Ghulam Muhammad for possession of drugs and illegal weapons on January 30and were handed over to a special investigation team comprising officers of Crime Branch (II).
An FIR was lodged by ASI Bhutto while ASI Thand was designated as the Investigation Officer (IO) of the case - registered under Section 23(1) A, 96-B and other provisions dealing with Narcotics Act and Sindh Arms Act.
The accused were produced before Judicial Magistrate (West) Sohail Ahmed Mashoori on January 31 who had sent them to the prison on judicial remand.
However, the two officers silently released Shah.
In a bid to change the record, the officials replaced Shah’s name with Chandio’s by introducing the latter’s name as the former’s alias with his (Shah’s) father’s name written after it: Roshan Chandio alias Syed Irfan Shah son of Syed Aslam Shah.
To add to it, since the IO had also not submitted any charge sheet against the accused within 17 days, under Section 173 of Criminal Procedure Code, the in charge of the court Muhammad Ishaq discharged the case from his court, under Section 73 of the Criminal Procedure Code, on June 22.
It was further learnt that another police officer had approached the court to get the file of the case in order to submit a charge sheet with the relevant special court i.e. Control of Narcotics Substances, but the judicial magistrate’s court was not intimated about it; hence no charge sheet has yet been submitted with the narcotics court.
However, the arrest of the accused - four of whom were still in prison - would be considered illegal confinement as no trial was being conducted against them.
According to law experts, the failure of submission of a police report and charge sheet weakens the prosecution’s case and such delays always favoured the accused.
Another case pertaining to illegal detention worthy of highlight was of a citizen, Faisal Sardar, released by a police officer after demanding Rs50,000 from him.
The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) on a petition filed by Sardar himself recently issued notices to SHO Brigade police station to explain as to why an ASI, Attaullah, had taken Sardar in his custody.
A shopkeeper and resident of Abyssinia Lines, Sardar claimed he was arrested three months ago and was later released by police officer Attaullah against a sum of Rs50,000.
He maintained that at the time of taking the money, the officer had threatened him of arresting his entire family if he spoke about the incident to anyone.
According to Sardar, he did not tell anyone of the settlement but the police officer again demanded an amount of Rs200,000 this time threatening of arresting him and implicating him in false cases if he failed to pay the amount.
The court summoned the SHO and sought an explanation over the concerned police officers corrupt practices.