Pakistan army chief orders probe into party worker’s custodial death

Karachi (AFP) – Pakistan’s powerful army chief Wednesday ordered a probe into the death of an activist from Karachi’s main political party who was in the custody of the city’s paramilitary Rangers.

Aftab Ahmed from the Muttahida Quami Movement, also the fourth largest party in the country’s parliament, had been in custody since Sunday.

He complained about chest pains and was taken to hospital where he died of cardiac arrest on Tuesday, the Rangers said in a statement.

But when photos of his marked body surfaced on social media later that day, the Rangers said they had suspended an unspecified number of personnel related to Aftab’s death and that a “high-level” committee had been formed to investigate it.

Pakistan’s army chief Raheel Sharif also ordered a probe into his death, military spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said on Twitter.

MQM’s senior leader Farooq Sattar appealed to the country’s top court to take notice of the “extra-judicial killing”.

“Aftab Ahmed had been martyred in (the) Rangers custody after extreme torture. His toenails were pulled out, he was given electric shocks…there was not a single part of his body which was spared from torture,” he said in a statement.

The Human Right Commission of Pakistan condemned the killing.

“The circumstances of Aftab Ahmed’s death, and why a number of apparently healthy people in Rangers’ custody develop serious conditions or even die, must not go uninvestigated any longer,” it said.

Amnesty International called for independent inquiries into Ahmed’s death.

“A series of contradictory statements by the paramilitary force in the hours since the news of Aftab Ahmed’s death emerged point to attempts to mislead the public and resist accountability,” Jameen Kaur, Amnesty International’s deputy director for South Asia said in a statement.

The MQM, run by the exiled Altaf Hussain from London, has long been blamed for ethnic violence in Karachi. 

It has clashed repeatedly with authorities who, say rights groups, have resorted to hundreds of extra-judicial killings during a “clean-up” operation that began in 2013 in a city already plagued by violence.

In September last year the MQM alleged the Rangers had killed four of its workers who had “disappeared” months ago after being kidnapped by the force.

The Rangers said the four were involved in the killing of as many as 28 people, including police officials and a lawyer.