Islamabad, Jan 8 (IANS) An Asian rights group has accused Pakistani police of extra judicial killing of a 31-year-old man of a minority community who had refused to pay Eid “bribe” to cops.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Friday wrote to the UN special rapporteur on torture, extra-judicial killings calling for its intervention into the murder of Abid Javed Francis, 31, who was arrested “without charge” and later tortured to death in a police station.

IANS has a copy of the letter and case details.

Francis was “beaten and abused in a number of police stations and Karachi central prison for not paying bribes in the lead up to Eid, and was thrashed in front of his mother Venice alias Zeenat”, the AHRC alleges.

According to the rights group, the medico-legal department of a Karachi hospital has confirmed that the man’s death was caused by the “injuries he received during the custodial period”.

“No action has yet been taken by the Sindh provincial government,” the AHRC letter says demanding prosecution of 11 accused police officers, including the superintendent of Karachi central prison.

Francis, an electrician by profession, was a Christian and was arrested Nov 22 last year.

The police first demanded “Rs.10,000 ($125) and later Rs.50,000 ($625) in bribe from his family that resides in a slum settlement”.

Police blackmailed the victim by filing a false case of possessing illegal arms and the charge was logged through FIR two days after his arrest.

Ten minutes after the first FIR was filed, Francis was charged with stealing a motorbike.

On Dec 7, his mother was informed that her son was ill and when she went to see him she found him “stripped to his underwear, on a stretcher in an open area, exposed to chill”.

“He was on a glucose drip, unable to open his eyes. Due to her protests he was moved to a civil hospital in Karachi. Doctors took a CT scan of the victim’s head and moved him to the neurology ward, where he was pronounced dead Dec 10,” according to the AHRC letter.