THE provincial metropolis Peshawar remained tense on Monday where the vehicular traffic on many routs including the BRT bus service was halted by the furious crowd to resent the brutal killing of a grade seven student allegedly at the hands of the Police.
In fact yet another innocent soul fell victim to the Police Gardi in Peshawar where in a short span of few months many people were killed by the Police force sometimes in the name of chasing criminals and often in fake Police encounters.
The young Shah Zeb a seventh class student of a reputed education institution Racine was picked up by the Police after he allegedly exchange harsh words with a shopkeeper in Saddar Bazar on Sunday evening.
The “efficient” Police force then booked the kid in 15AA and put him in the lockup.
However, when his parents were called after an hour or so, they only saw the dead body of the innocent soul.
Though the Police claimed the young child Shah Zaib committed suicide in the Police custody, the social circles as well as the government functionaries rubbished the police claims with the governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Shah Farman and CM Mehmood Khan ordered immediately inquiry to the incident after smelling rat in the Police findings.
He committed suicide inside the prison after strangulating himself using a piece of cloth,” the police said adding that they are investigating the entire episode.
Though as an eye-wash the Provincial Police Chief suspended the staff of the Cantt Police station and that too after the intervention by the Governor and CM KP and also arrested few cops, the Police high up are hell bent to safeguard their Paity Bunds insisting that the kid has committed suicide and to substantiate their claim they also aired a CCTV footage which the social media has altogether rejected.
So much so that the Governor KP Shah Farman also approached the IG and directed him to submit a complete report to him regarding the incident saying “Why the student was arrested at first and what were the circumstances that led him to allegedly committing suicide?”.
The governor besides also condoling with the family of the victim over his death, assured them to bring anyone involved in it to justice.
On Monday the relatives and social activists took to the streets and blocked major roads of the city where traffic was blocked to condemn what they called killing of the child at the hand of Police force in its custody.
Even the BRT bus services were suspended causing great inconvenience to more than 150000 commuters availing the service daily.
One wonders as to what could lead to force Shah Zeb, booked in a small case, end his life.
His father openly charged the staff of the Police station subjecting his child to a worst kind of traditional torture, the Police is known for, and then giving it a color of Suicide that was beyond apprehension.
He said after killing him, the police hanged his body and then also recorded a CCTV footage. He called upon the helm of affairs to provide him justice.
Though the KP CM Mahmood Khan while taking notice of the student’s death during the custody had ordered a judicial inquiry into the entire episode, the civic circles believe it is not going to compensate the death of the young soul at the hand of Police that has in this practice and every time effectively escapes any action.
Unfortunately, the Police force that has to some extent gained the status of a model police in the era of former IG KP Nasir Durani , is no longer a model police at all and has been resorting to all activities that are not only tarnishing its image but also earning bad name to the PTI government in general and provincial government in particular.
