‘Polluted waters caused suspected thief’s death’

ISLAMABAD: A suspected thief, who drowned in a stream in Islamabad last week after he was allegedly chased by police officials, had water in his lungs and had inhaled noxious gasses, says a medical report issued by the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

The medical report, prepared by a Pims board headed by medico-legal officer Dr Farrukh Kamal, says that Farman Masih, who was handcuffed when he ran away from policemen, died after inhaling noxious gases after he fell in the stream.

Masih was suspected of stealing car batteries, but his family claim that he was tortured by the police before he was shoved into the stream. The medial board had been formed after the deceased’s family leveled the allegations against the policemen.

A hospital source said that the report does not list any torture marks being found on the victim’s body. Earlier, a postmortem report had said that Masih likely died of drowning as his lungs had taken in water from the stream.

The incident took place on April 18 at Essa Nagri in Sector I-9, when Masih, who was handcuffed and taken into custody after police officials including Assistant Sub Inspector Shahid Munir alleged found evidence that he was involved in stealing batteries from a house.

The police had claimed that they recovered one battery from his possession. When the police questioned him about the remaining batteries, he took them to the place where he had sold them off, before leaping towards the stream, the police had claimed.

On April 12, three policemen — Shahid Muneer, and constables Habib and Waseem — were booked for the alleged murder of Masih. The police have registered an FIR against, but have not arrested anyone yet.

Industrial area SHO Asjad Mehmood confirmed that medial report declares the death was caused by drowning. He said that the nominated police officials will soon be arrested.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2015.

Category: English