FAISALABAD: An inquiry has found that former Jhumra station house officer (SHO) Waheed Shahid and investigation officer Iftikhar Husain challaned two persons in a robbery-murder case by tampering with data on mobile phones.

City Police Officer Afzaal Ahmed Kausar said action would be taken against the accused policemen in a week.

On Dec 26, unidentified people had killed Akram in Chak Jhumrah during a robbery.

Then Jhumrah SHO Waheed Shahid arrested Arif in the case, who was found injured at the scene. Police also arrested Nawaz, cousin of Arif, and tortured them coercing into making a confession to kill Akram.

After Arif and Nawaz were implicated in the case, their family approached the CPO who ordered the probe. The inquiry report says the SHO and the investigation officer did not verify facts prior to the registration of the case.

The report found discrepancies in the statements about the time of the robbery-cum-murder act: Rescue 15 record shows the incident happened at 8:33pm; the wireless operator of the Jhumra police said time was 8:38pm, while Tariq (who reported to police) said the incident took place 15-20 minutes before he called police. However, the postmortem report of Akram read the body was taken to the Jhumra Tehsil Headquarters hospital at 8:30pm.

Police implicated Arif and Nawaz in the case though it was on record that both had met an accident between 7:15pm and 7:25pm near a textile mills, quite away from the crime scene. A third person called the Rescue 1122 which arrived at the spot after 30 minutes and treated both injured.

As Arif was tortured, he named Nawaz as suspect while the investigation officer did not bother to meet Nawaz who had also been injured in the accident.

Data on mobile phones of the two people was also found tampered with. It showed that Arif had met an accident and went home after treatment, while no contact had been found between Arif and Nawaz.

The probe states no weapon was seized from the accused people.

Madina Town Superintendent of Police Malik Jameel Zafar, who conducted the probe, concluded that investigation of the case was finalised in a hurry and with wrong intention as both Arif and Nawaz are innocent.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2017