PESHAWAR: A local court on Monday granted bail to two policemen arrested over the death of a seventh grader inside a police lock-up here two weeks ago.

Additional district and sessions judge Tahir Aurangzeb accepted the joint bail petition of West Cantonment station house officer Dost Mohammad and moharrir Ismail on the condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs200,000 each.

Following a public outcry after news of the custodial death of teenage boy Shahzeb had gone viral on Mar 14, the city police chief had suspended all members of the police station’s staff. The SHO and moharrir were taken into custody.

The schoolboy, who belonged to Mullazai village on the outskirts of Peshawar, had allegedly committed suicide inside the police lock-up.

The family members claimed that the deceased was 15 years of age and his case had to be dealt by the child protection court. However, as the relevant police officials didn’t mention his age in the relevant documents, the local court in question heard the bail petition of both suspects.

High court CJ names sessions judge for inquiry

According to a police report, the student was overpowered by traders and bazaar guards after he pointed his pistol at a shopkeeper during a brawl. The traders took him to the West Cantonment police station, where he was booked under Section 15 of the Arms Act before being kept in the lockup. He allegedly committed suicide there afterward.

However, his father, Khayal Akbar, who is complainant in the FIR of his son’s death, told the police that he had rushed to the police station after receiving a call at around 3:25pm on the day of the incident about the son’s detention in a motorcycle-related case.

He said he reached the police station in the next 40 minutes but the police officials made him wait for three hours before disclosing his son’s death.

The complainant said his child’s body was shown to him at around 6pm.

A purported CCTC footage of the lockup also surfaced showing the boy commit suicide.

The counsel for the petitioners contended that his clients were initially charged with killingthe boy, but it surfaced that the boy had committed suicide.

He argued that there was no evidence found to show that the petitioners had tortured the deceased which had resulted in his death.

He added that the complainant had accused the petitioners of torturing the deceased without any available evidence, whereas a video footage of the lock-up clearly showed that he had committed suicide.

The complainant’s counsel argued that the petitioners were directly charged in the case and were not entitled to the concession of bail.

He questioned why a teenage boy would commit suicide soon after he was taken into custody. He added that the medical examination report declared that the body of the deceased carried marks of violence.

Meanwhile, Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Qaiser Rasheed has nominated an additional district and sessions judge Ahmad Ihsanullah Qureshi for conducting a judicial inquiry into the student’s death.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had requested the Peshawar High Court lately for nominating a judicial officer to hold that inquiry to ascertain the reasons, which led to the death of the teenage student.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2021