KANDAHAR CITY (SW): The powerful police chief of Kandahar Gen. Abdul Raziq has rejected a UN report charging him of torture and enforced disappearances.
In a press conference late on Saturday, the police chief said he has referred up to 200 police officers to judiciary over charges of violating the rules. He added among those police officers imprisoned for these charges included district police chiefs for Ghorak, Khakrez and Takhta Pul districts.
On Friday, the U.N. Committee against Torture said it was deeply concerned at numerous reports brought to its attention about the situation in Kandahar, including the use of torture methods such as suffocation, crushing the testicles, pumping water into the stomach and administering electric shocks. The U.N. body said the Afghan National Police (ANP) in the province was allegedly responsible for incommunicado detention, enforced disappearances, mass arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings during counter-insurgency operations.
"The Committee is particularly concerned at the numerous and credible allegations indicating General Abdul Raziq, ANP Commander in Kandahar, as being widely suspected of complicity, if not of personal implication, in severe human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and settlement of secret detention centers," the committee's report said.
Rejected the allegations, Gen. Raziq blamed Pakistan’s intelligence agency for perpetrating this UN report. He noted a UN delegation toured all prisons in the province, and find no evidence of torture.
ENDS
