KARACHI: Despite the fact that the family of a teenage boy accused police of killing their son in a staged encounter, a senior police officer has entrusted certain police officers with the task of probing the allegations of fake encounters against their own colleagues, it emerged on Tuesday.

SSP-West Irfan Baloch told Dawn that he had ordered an inquiry into the recent ‘encounters’ by police in Ittehad Town’s Saeedabad area.

Supervised by SSP Irfan himself, the inquiry panel will include SP Orangi Sajid Sadozai, DSP Pakistan Bazaar Sohrab Mayo and an SHO and SIO from Orangi.

“Even though the policemen involved believe the ones they killed were affiliated with the Taliban, an inquiry is still necessary, since the family has spoken up against it,” he said.

He said that in “99 per cent of the cases”, families of victims or those killed on suspicion never showed up.

The prompt action of the SSP West can be traced back to June 28.

On the evening of June 28 (Saturday), Noman Aijaz Khan and Ismail Nisar Khan stopped at a fruit juice stall at Banaras Chowk after returning from a cricket match. Suddenly onlookers saw a police van appear at the scene and pulling in all three before speeding out of the busy street, according to family members.

On Monday night, at 9pm, Bakhtzada Khan succeeded in finding Noman’s bruised and battered body at the Edhi Foundation’s morgue in Sohrab Goth, after being turned away from five police stations within past nine days. Meanwhile, Ismail’s father is still looking for his son, or his battered lifeless body, by making rounds of various police stations since the day he was picked up. Both boys were 15.

Though Ismail is ‘missing’ at the moment, his family is already in mourning.

On Tuesday afternoon, Bakhtzada’s rented home was full of relatives as he tried speaking above the sound of a loud wail coming from an adjacent room. While speaking about the incident, he was fully in control of his emotions as he said: “The policemen at Ittehad Town’s Saeedabad police station told me that my son demanded extortion from a trader. Then one of them remembered something and said he also killed a policeman. And later he told us he was a member of the Tehreek-i-Taliban (Swat). I just looked at them in disbelief.”

Noman’s sister, Musarrat, the eldest among Bakhtzada’s seven children, said: “Are these policemen trying to tell us that all Pakhtuns are Taliban? Who has given them the right to pick and kill anyone from the street? On whose orders do you kill a 15-year-old and why?”

“I have never been so insulted in my entire life,” added Bakhtzada as his daughter sobbed quietly. “The policemen told me to shut my mouth and sit in a corner until they find out whether they have my son or not. Some other police stations we went to didn’t even let us in and shooed us away from the gates as though we were beggars.”

Speaking once again about his son, he said that before being picked up, Noman had recently returned from a cricket match between various cities including Swat, Mardan, Peshawar and Lahore.

A member of the Kemari Gymkhana, Noman was an under 15 cricketer.

“He was very happy after winning a match in Mardan and called me up to tell me about it. He lost the one held in Peshawar but I told him that I’m still very proud of him,” says Bakhtzada, his voice finally breaking. “I couldn’t recognise him in the morgue the other night. I had to look at his face twice before I realised it was him. The area between his neck and shoulders had turned black from the beatings. I counted six bullet wounds on his body. They seemed fresh. Maybe they shot him after he died from torture. Honestly, I don’t have the strength to find that out. Nobody speaks for anyone, and even if I do, I would be silenced.”

Noman’s case is among the series of ‘encounters’ by the police force within the past one week. Being the second case within the past four days, the force had a similar ‘encounter’ in Pak Colony on Monday night where three men were killed on suspicion of being from the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. But when asked on whose orders they kill without bringing the suspects before a court, most policemen turn defensive or angry at being questioned.

Representing the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zuhra Yusuf said that so far more than 350 people had been killed in extra-judicial killings by the law enforcement agencies in Karachi. “These killings have continued in Karachi since the beginning of the operation last year in September. It will increase more with time unless the Supreme Court or the Sindh High Court takes notice of the encounters like it did last year as well. The notice will at least make the policemen appear before a court of law and be answerable to someone.”

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2014