LAHORE, Feb 8: The police were on Wednesday left protesting against some army personnel over the custody of a suspect in a 2011 forced-marriage case.

The police said a group of army men forcibly took away the suspect from the Misri Shah police station on Wednesday evening.
Not only this, the police officials claimed the soldiers briefly held hostage a sub-inspector and gave a thrashing to other staff at the police station. The sub-inspector, identified simply as Javed, had arrested Saleem Masih, working as a sweeper in an army unit, in a forced-marriage case registered in 2011.

Military sources rebutted the police claim. They said only two personnel had secured the release of Saleem Masih from police custody and termed Masih’s arrest “unauthorised and illegal”.

According to police sources, a case (897/11) under Section 496 (Marriage ceremony fraudulently gone through…) and 380 (Theft in dwelling house, etc.) of the PPC was registered against Saleem Masih. The complainant was Anjum Shahzadi, who said Masih had forced her daughter to marry him.

It is said that SI Javed arrested and brought him to the police station on Wednesday, only to see his catch snatched away soon afterwards. The police said Javed was himself taken away and was set free near the Murghi Khana stop in the cantonment.

Military sources, however, insisted that “it is totally wrong to say” that the police station was “raided” by a contingent led by an officer. According to the military law, police were required to give prior information to the authorities concerned before arresting any military personnel or a civilian employed with the army and this was not done in this case.

They said that higher authorities on the two sides were in contact with each other for an amicable resolution of the issue and inquiries were under way to find truth and pin responsibility.

The military sources denied that SI Javed had been taken away from the police station. They said Saleem Masih might be handed over to police if it was established that he was genuinely involved in the case.