LAHORE: 3 foreigner tourists cycling in the Sadiqabad area on their way to Lahore have raised serious allegations of assault and sexual harassment against the Punjab police whose jurisdictions they entered on Jan 25.
On Saturday, a video emerged showing a policeman attacking them. It later came to light on Sunday that this incident was just one of several alleged assaults that the cycling tourists, including Alex Sidney from Italy, Charlie West from the UK, and Motahhareh Abbasi from Iran, had encountered since they entered Punjab. Despite having a Punjab police escort assigned to protect them, it was the police who allegedly attacked them.
Alex is one of three tourists cycling in Pakistan. He started his travel on bicycle from Italy in 2022 and cycled through Europe during the last two years. He was joined by Mohtahhare in Tehran when he was travelling towards Pakistan. They entered Pakistan from the Balochistan-Iran border and cycled through Balochistan and Sindh.
In Karachi, they were joined by Charlie West who landed in Karachi from the UK.
“On Saturday, when we left our hotel in Sadiqbad in the morning, we were escorted by police. We were having breakfast at a roadside hotel, when another police van, different from our escort, reached there. We had never seen these three policemen before,” says Alex while talking to Dawn from Sadiqabad by phone.
Female tourist says she was injured in assault, faces harassment from policemen
He said a policeman, earlier identified as ASI Liaqat, started shouting at his Iranian friend, Motahhareh, to get up. “When we asked him why, he did not give a reply and instead tried to snatch the camera. He grabbed me from my hair and threw me down on the floor. He tried to hit me with a large stick but went back towards his vehicle having my camera,” alleged the Italian tourist. He went on to say that when the policeman asked his driver to drive away, they all tried to stop him as he was taking Alex’s camera along that had all the evidence.
“When Motahhareh stood in front of the vehicle to block its way, the policeman instructed his driver to run her over under the vehicle,” alleged Alex who added that he jumped onto the police vehicle as he did not want to let his camera go. But the vehicle sped away with Alex in it. He kept shouting, asking the policemen to stop their vehicle. After a kilometre, they stopped the vehicle and Alex jumped off it. Meanwhile, the tourists’ own escort kept their distance and did not intervene, according to the Italian tourist.
Thirty minutes later, additional policemen showed up, and the same vehicle returned. A person claiming to be a policeman handed Alex’s camera to one of the officers. Alex mentioned that when Motahhareh approached the policeman who was filming him, he aimed his gun at her.
Regarding the version of police that the tourists were stopped from going to Kashmore, Sindh, an unsafe area, when the confrontation happened, Alex said they were not going towards Kashmore but Lahore. He said they had cycled in Sindh, mostly escorted by police, but did not face any such incident there. In Punjab, he claimed, they had taken the same route as was told by police.
He stated that this wasn’t the initial attack by the police. “We entered Punjab on January 25 and began experiencing assaults and harassment from January 26. In previous attacks, police vehicles and motorcycles hit us as they insisted we were going the wrong way. We explained we were headed to a hotel on the national highway. They attempted to hit us.”
Motahhareh said the policemen in Punjab would drive their vehicle or ride motorcycles very close to her, sometimes making her get off the road. “On Jan 26, I fell down and got injured when a policeman stopped his motorcycle suddenly in front of her. And it was quite deliberate. I fell down and injured my leg while my heavy bags fell on me.” Motahhareh got treatment for her leg.
About this alleged assault, Alex said they went to Ahmedpur Lamma Police Station and asked the policeman on the desk to register a complaint, but he refused to do so, asking them to take help from social media.
Motahhareh also raised serious allegations of sexual harassment against police in Pakistan. “Many times, they asked me for my WhatsApp number and kept on insisting. When I asked them the reason, they would start insulting me. At the start I gave my phone number to some of them and they started asking for pictures and sending creepy messages. For the last one month, I have been receiving creepy messages from Pakistani policemen.” She alleged regardless of the province, policemen from all three provinces they travelled in harassed her and the situation was worse in Punjab.
Alex reported that a policeman in Punjab forcefully held her hand for several minutes. When questioned about potential language barriers between the policemen and the tourists, Alex mentioned that some of the policemen spoke English well. She explained that whenever they stopped for a break, the policemen would warn them that the area wasn’t safe and advised them to move on. However, they suspected that the policemen were actually trying to get them out of their jurisdictions quickly. This pattern continued with each new escort, who also misled them about the
Alex said they felt safer without police as the common Pakistanis were very good and hospitable towards them and added that many times in Sindh, they did not have police escort and it was very safe.
Alex said they were staying in Sadiqabad near the site where they were assaulted by police as Motahhareh’s leg was recovering, rejecting the earlier police report that they had left the area for Lahore. He said he wanted to cycle through Punjab and meet the people who are very good. He said they felt safe when they were on their own without police and were in fact more in danger in presence of their escort, which ironically was there to protect them.
Their third fellow Charlie West wanted to do cycling separately towards Lahore as he rides it fast but the situation is unsure now.
Police in Rahim Yar Khan and Sadiqabad were contacted for their version but their spokesmen refused to attend the multiple calls made by Dawn.
Sources within the Rahim Yar Khan police department mentioned that the tourists who were staying at a hotel in Sadiqabad had left on Saturday. Currently, they are staying at a restaurant near a filling station between Sadiqabad and Rahim Yar Khan. The sources denied the accusations of assault but emphasized that police escorts were present to ensure the security of the tourists.
Source: Dawn
