PAKISTAN: Engineering student tortured to death in “half fry and full fry” police practice

Dear Friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a final student in University, named Toqier Mashori, has been tortured to death in the Central Prison of Hyderabad, Sindh, within three days of his arrest. His family was asked by the police and prison authorities to pay large bribes for Mashori’s relief or else he would be “full fried”, terminology used by Sindh police to kill a person in custody by torture or in a fake encounter. Two of his fellow students were released after they paid the bribes. The victims were taken in custody on charges of disturbing the official duty of police. However, when the family could not comply with the bribe demand, Mashori was booked in a case involving drug peddling. The victim was continuously tortured for three days up to 18 hours a day. The torturers put him in conditions of scorching heat and beat him mercilessly. His corpse bears the marks of torture. Senior police officials have pressured the family to bury the corpse, without a post mortem.

CASE NARRATIVE:

Toqier Mashori, 25, student of final year at Mehran University, Jam Shoro, Sindh, was taken in custody outside from his house while he was sitting there with two other friends. This happened late at night of June 26 / 27. His friends, Saif Ali, 19, who is also Mashori’s first cousin and a first year student of Nawabshah Engineering College, and Sohail Marri, 20, studying in Hyderabad City College, were talking to each other when a police jeep arrived and asked the three of them to accompany the policemen. As the students questioned the police officials, they were forcibly put in the van and taken away. At Qasimabad Police Station, the officials asked them to pay a large bribe amount for their release so they would only be booked in a small case. When the police failed to get a bribe out of the young men, they warned them that if they did not pay the sum they would be booked for making a disturbance in the official work of police or for selling drugs. 

The family members by now learned of their having been detained and tried to pay a bribe according to their financial positions. However, the police went ahead and booked the three young men on the charge of selling drugs. Next morning, they were presented before a judicial magistrate and were remanded to judicial custody in Hyderabad Central Prison.

When the three students entered Hyderabad Prison, they were asked by two policemen to pay a bribe amount for not being assigned labour inside the jail and for not being treated badly. The deceased, Mashori, belongs to a poor family; his father was trade unionist and nowadays is suffering from a stroke and is bedridden for the last five years. 

According to information the AHRC has received from two of the students, the two policemen put the students in the scorching heat of over 45 degrees Celsius. For three days, they were placed under direct sun light and were beaten with heavy wooden sticks continuously virtually through the period of detention. 

Two of the students, whose families paid substantial bribes, were granted bail on Monday, June 29. That day, when family members of the two students went to meet the students in jail, they told to their family members to do something otherwise Mashori would die due to heat and torture. 

At noon that day Mashori fainted in the sun and fell down. The jailors thought Mashori was acting and started beating him again by kicking him and punching him. Mashori died. The authorities that Mashori died of heat stroke declared it that. His corpse bore torture marks on the shoulders, on the face, and on the backside. Mashori has left behind a wife and an infant. 

Judicial custody means that a person should remain safe in the prison and whenever his or her date of hearing comes he or she must be produced in the court and no harm can be done during this custodial detention. However, in this case, the jail authorities have killed a young man by continuously torturing him and have injuring the other two as well. No inquiry has been initiated against the jail authorities by the provincial government or by the Judiciary to ascertain why the under-trial died in custody.

The Sindh government has still not taken any action against Hyderabad Central Prison officials. Because of the absence of any law against the practice of custodial torture, the police and other law enforcement authorities have a free hand to deal in any way with under-trial prisoners. 

The Sindh Police these days uses the terminology of “half fry” and “full fry” particularly in the cities of Hyderabad, Larkana, Nawabshah, and other adjoining areas. The senior officials of the police, including Deputy Inspector General and Senior Superintendents, while interacting in a “meet the press” event at Hyderabad Press Club, said they are not doing “normal policing” but want to deal with criminals with iron fists. “Half fry” means injuring suspects so that they become disabled for the rest of their life, while the “full fry” means killing them extrajudicially through a fake encounter. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Pakistan ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2010, but no concrete steps have been taken to enact a law. A draft Anti Torture Bill that purports to curb torture is eyewash, to dodge pressure from the international community. In Pakistan, the justice system is riddled with gaping problems related to fair trial and with conviction after conviction based on statements extracted through torture or other forms of ill-treatment. A staggering proportion of the accused have reported facing custodial torture, which is a serious indictment of due process of law in Pakistan and the fairness of its criminal justice system.

Custodial torture in Pakistan is treated as an inevitable part of crime investigation. Investigators adhere to the notion that if enough pressure is applied, the accused will confess. Nepotism, corruption, torture, misuse of power, and illegal detention form the crux of what is the criminal justice system in Pakistan. Torture is often used to extract self-implicating confessional statements from suspects who are often innocent. In the absence of modern forensic tools, the Judiciary and the prosecution rely upon confessional statements. These statements are never crosschecked against available circumstantial evidence, resulting in making torture the only tool available to the police. The criminal justice system in the country is therefore no more an aid or a means to seek justice; for many it is a labyrinth from where there is no escape.

The AHRC will be issuing a separate report on “half fry” and “full fry” practice of the Pakistani police along with the statistics. 

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please write the letters to the following authorities calling them to initiate an inquiry in to the torture and killing of a young engineer, Toqier Mashori, in jail custody, for not fulfilling the bribe demand of the police and jailors. Please urge them to arrest and prosecute the police officials of Hyderabad central prison including the Superintendent of Prison and officials of Qasim Abad Police Station, Hyderabad, Sindh, for conducting torture in custody and killing a young man. Inquiry must be conducted into the police practice of “half fry” and “full fry” used to extort citizens on the threat of killing and injuring them. Furthermore, jail authorities must compensate the family members of Mashori and the two other students. The government must criminalise the practice of torture and immediately make a law against the practice of torture according to the UN Convection Against Torture (UNCAT).

The AHRC is writing a separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment calling for his intervention into this matter.

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