Afghan teenager boy accuses policemen of molesting

Salman Yousafzai

PESHAWAR: An Afghan teenager boy sitting in a police van in front of Peshawar Lower Court accused policemen of molesting him in a short video that went viral on social media.

The video shows a fair skin teenager named Bilal claiming that police molested him during their captivity.

The teenager was presented in lower court and after hearing when he was sitting in a police van flanked by a policeman claimed he was raped by police in Pishtakhara and Hayatabad.

As the video came on the surface, SP Cantt Wasim Riaz said that Bilal was arrested by police last night in connection with motorcycle lifting.

He said that a committee has been initiated under his supervision and they were further inquiring the allegations made by the teenager.

Local police said that ASI Mir Ibrar arrested Bilal from Basharat Market in Hayatabad on Sunday night on receiving information that Bilal is a suspected motorcycle lifter.

Police said that Gulzaid father of the arrested boy is a carrier of Non-Duty Paid (NDP) goods from Karkhano market to other parts of the city.

A transporter of NDP goods on the condition of anonymity said that no one lodged a report with police against Bilal. He was arrested without any known reason. He said that “the only sin of Bilal is his nationality that he is an Afghan and his poverty; he is not a motorcycle lifter”.

He is doing a wrong business of transporting goods illegally in a handcart from Jamrod to Karkhano market but he is not a thief”, he added. The transporter revealed that he is the only breadwinner of his younger sister and brother because his step father is a drug addict.

When asked the investigator of the case Sher Rehman, he said that due to work burden he couldn’t find time to look at the case.