A district and sessions court sent on a law enforcement volunteer, who was caught on camera slapping a woman in public, into police custody on physical remand. The suspect, said to be a personnel of Police Qaumi Razakar (PQR), a volunteer force meant to assist police in managing law and order and ensuring public safety, was arrested on Wednesday after the provincial authorities took notice of the video going viral on social media. The suspect, identified as Ali Akbar, was taken into custody from his house in Hijrat Colony after the place and persons in the video were identified. The woman being subject to torture in the video was accused of theft and therefore held by the shopkeepers at Gulf Market in Clifton. The video was filmed on Muharram 7 and uploaded on social media. The woman in the clip was accused of theft and she had allegedly been arrested for theft on at least one previous occasion. Shopkeepers at Gulf Market in Clifton, Karachi, had detained her initially. The clip went viral, came to the attention of the mainstream media and was quickly acted upon with the man who struck the woman being arrested at his house on October 28. He was produced before a judicial magistrate, regretted his actions and pleaded forgiveness. Whatever the woman may or may not have done, it is not for the police or anybody working in a support role to them to dispense either summary justice or a summary beating whilst in custody. The incident was witnessed by serving police officers who made no attempt to restrain or admonish their volunteer. It would have disappeared without trace was it not to have been posted to a social media website and the rest is history. The police are frequently accused of brutality towards those that they detain but there is rarely any evidence to support the accusations. The woman may or may not have committed a crime, may or may not be a habitual criminal — but she deserves to be appropriately treated whatever her alleged crime.
pk.shafaqna.com
