Afghan smuggler flees from police station
GARAM CHASHMA: A suspected Afghan smuggler arrested by Garam Chashma police a few days ago while smuggling drugs from Afghanistan escaped from the police station, local people told ChitralToday correspondent.
The police had arrested six Afghan nationals at a picket near the Afghan border after they crossed into Chitral from the neighbouring country carrying opium.
Five of the suspects ran back to Afghanistan after opening fire while the remaining one was caught and brought to the Garam Chashma police station.
Bid to smuggle 39kg heroin from Afghanistan foiled
At that time the police had claimed about its successful campaign against narcotics smugglers and peddlers and vowed to eliminate them.
The Afghan smuggler was then produced before a court in Chitral by the police and obtained his physical remand.
The police took him back to the police station where the suspect wanted to go to washroom.
The police officials opened his handcuff and instead of sending him to a washroom attached to the lock-up sent him to the bathroom reserved for the staff.
But when he did not come out, the police started knocking at the door and finally broke the door open and found that the suspect had escaped after breaking the ventilator of the bathroom.
Some locals also claimed that the police officials chased the fleeing Afghan on a motorcycle but without carrying arms and failed to catch him.
Later, raids were conducted in a number of houses in Gobor and Parabeg valleys by the police but there was no clue to the suspect.
The locals wondered how the suspect could break the ventilator of the bathroom and get away without being caught.
They said earlier too an alleged smuggler had escaped form the same bathroom of the police station but he was arrested again as he was a local person.
The locals said suspending two officials after the escape of the alleged smuggler was not enough and an investigation should be conducted to expose all those behind the drama.
They also called upon the DPO and DC Chitral to take action against those responsible behind the escape of the alleged smuggler.
Can someone ask the DPO lower Chitral why police performance is going from bad to worse with each passing day? He is putting innocent and educated people like Sher Jehan Sahil on schedule IV of Anti Terrorism Act but a notorious smuggler is no more in his control.
The DPO should have a solid answer to why his men had no capacity to round the smuggler up after he fled from their custody and ran back to Afgganistan.
The cops must have helped the smuggler or having big bellies which could have been the reason they could not chase him.
The Chitral police could be seen taking pride afer recovering two gram charas let me repeat only two gram charas but have no capacity to catch a professional smuggler.
Time has come the DPO lower Chitral should be posted out as he has miserably failed to deal with some tricky issues that took place in the area.
I would request the IG Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to hold a probe against the DPO instead of investigating the concerned Police Station officials.