A post-mortem report of Amir Masih, a gardener who died after being illegally detained in an alleged police torture cell in Lahore, has confirmed torture on various parts of his body. According to the report, torture marks were visible on Amir's hands, feet, back and arms while his ribs were also broken. The issue surfaced late on Monday night when some policemen brought Amir Masih to the Services Hospital Lahore in a critical condition where he died instantly. Meanwhile, the relatives of the deceased got infuriated and blocked Jail Road for traffic against the police.
Later, Punjab IGP Arif Nawaz Khan had taken notice of the incident and ordered DIG Investigation Inam Waheed to submit a detailed report within 24 hours. The DIG in his report to the IGP confirmed that Amir Masih (28) was illegally detained in a private cell (illegally) established by the North Cantonment investigation police. He said sub-inspector Zeshan and four police constables were directly involved in the act which led to the death of Amir. He added that the accused policemen had subjected Amir to severe torture on private premises in the Cantonment area where they kept him in illegal detention for five days or so for interrogation. According to the record, Amir was not arrested in any case lodged against him, he noted.
On the findings Inam Waheed, the IGP ordered suspension of in-charge investigation of North Cantt police Nasir Baigh, Zeshan and all other four policemen. The North Cantt police had also registered a murder case against them on the complaint of deceased's brother Sani Masih.
It was the second incident of torture cell of police detected in Lahore. Earlier, a cell was unearthed in the building of forest department in the Gujjarpura police area where some nine people were detained illegally. Of them, one Amjad Ali, who was found with bone fracture and in a critical condition died later at a hospital.