https://padlet.com/nicamaebarsaga/s8impdlfdajfhnk7 en-us 2024-01-19 05:17:24 UTC 2024-01-20 09:35:53 UTC hello@padlet.com nicamaebarsaga https://padlet.com/nicamaebarsaga/s8impdlfdajfhnk7/wish/2854317916 On the morning of May 12, 1998, police arrested thirteen-year-old Ghulam Jilani at his home in Killay De Kassi, a village in the Hazara division of the North-West Frontier Province. Jilani, who had a fifth grade education and worked as a minibus conductor, was taken to the police station in the neighboring town of Mansehra. The police had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Jilani for the theft of Rs. 2,700 ($53) from the cash box of a store near his home. Sajid, a boy of about fifteen years, was also arrested in the case. That afternoon, police informed Ghulam Rabbani, Jilani's father, that his son had been hospitalized. When Rabbani reached the hospital, he was told that Jilani had died, and that an autopsy was being performed. In a FIR filed shortly before 4:00 p.m. that day, police officer Muhammad Iqbal alleged that Jilani had attempted to commit suicide in violation of section 325 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The accused Jilani ... was locked in his prison cell along with Sajid. He climbed the wall of the latrine located inside the prison cell, and tried to hang himself by tying a rope around his neck. At this point, the fellow prisoner Sajid shouted that Jilani had hung himself. Froth was coming out of hismouth, and he was unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital. Presently, the accused is alive, but his condition is critical.

Sajid himself had a markedly different account to relate:
He said "We were both kept in the same room at the police station. After some time, Ghulam Jilani was taken away from that room. When he was brought back, he was bleeding from the nose and mouth. The bleeding was so horrifying that I became afraid, and I covered my face with a piece of cloth. Soon after this, I was released from the police station".

The autopsy report stated that Jilani died of head injuries, a finding that prompted Rabbani to file a criminal complaint of murder against Muhammad Nawaz, the head constable of the Mansehra police station. A medical examination of Sajid, conducted on May 18, indicated that he too had sustained physical abuse while in custody. According to the medical examiner's report, he was complaining of aches and pains throughout his body and appeared to have been beaten with a blunt object.

Children accused of committing criminal offenses in Pakistan are routinely tortured by police, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of these children go on to spend months or even years in overcrowded detention facilities awaiting the conclusion of their trials. The treatment of children in detention violates Pakistani law, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly ten years ago this Saturday and ratified by Pakistan a year later. Despite a law that requires police to bring criminal suspects before a judge within twenty-four hours of arrest, children may spend as long as three months in detention before seeing a judge. Children share their cells with adults while in police custody, and like adult detainees, are routinely subjected to various forms of torture or ill-treatment, including being beaten, hung upside down, or whipped with a rubber strap or specially-designed leather slipper. Human Rights Watch calls on the Pakistani authorities to establish independent bodies to hear and investigate complaints of abuse by police and prison personnel, and to ensure the strict separation of adults and children deprived of their liberty. Authorities should also provide sufficient teaching staff and modern vocational training in each facility housing juveniles, and prohibit imposition of the death penalty on children under the age of eighteen.]]> 2024-01-19 05:56:02 UTC https://padlet.com/nicamaebarsaga/s8impdlfdajfhnk7/wish/2854317916