Pakistan Gender News Voice of Gender News From Pakistan
Departmental inquiry finds three police officials guilty of misconduct.
HARIPUR: Three police officers who investigated the killing of an adolescent girl in Kotari village two years ago are likely to face disciplinary action for fudging facts about her death and failing to launch an investigation into the case.
District Police Officer Haripur Muhammad Ali Khan on Tuesday served show cause notices to Inspector Shaukat Khan, Sub-Inspector Babar Khan and Assistant Sub-Inspector Nazak Khan of Khalabat Township police station after a departmental inquiry found them guilty of negligence and failing to determine the cause of the girl’s death.
According to legal experts, the police officials could face termination if they fail to submit a satisfactory reply within the stipulated period of 14 days.
The 13-year-old girl, Rehnaz Bibi, was killed after being shot 30 times by a Kalashnikov on September 9, 2010 and her death was termed an accident by the family. Without conducting a post-mortem the police allowed the girl’s burial.
Human rights activists termed her death an act of honour killing and pursued a case against the family in the Peshawar High Court. The court ordered the Hazara police chief to re-investigate the case on December 23, 2011 and initiate a departmental inquiry against police officials within 30 days.
On the orders of the high court, the girl’s body was exhumed and the autopsy report confirmed that she was shot at and killed. During investigation, one of her uncles, Aftab Shah, confessed to have accidently shot the girl while he was cleaning his pistol. He was sent to Haripur jail on judicial remand.
The family had initially claimed that the girl accidently shot herself while cleaning a pistol. However, the petitioners claimed that she was killed by her cousin, on her father’s request, for asking a boy she was in love with to marry her without her family’s consent.
The boy’s family, reportedly, had sent her back home the same evening with the promise of sending a proposal to her family later. The petitioners had claimed that the police closed the case in connivance with the family and concealed facts pertaining to her murder.
Source: The Express Tribune
