FIR against Silchar’s traffic Police in charge for misbehaving, torturing; Officer files counter charges alleging conspiracy

Ismail Hussain Laskar and Dilwar Hussain Khan, two employees working under a firm were returning from work yesterday when they were stopped at a traffic point by police for not wearing helmets. To penalize them for the offence, their motorcycle was seized and they were asked to report to the police station to bear the penalty fine to recover their vehicle.

When both of them later appeared at the station along with their employer Saddam Khan, they were ready to pay the fine incurred on them. But suddenly a heated argument broke out between them which led to alleged physical harassment of Saddam Khan and his associates. After being abused both verbally and physically, they later filed an FIR against the traffic police in-charge Atiqur Rahman.

Saddam Khan is a private contractor working in Silchar. Ismail Hussain Laskar and Dilwar Hussain Khan are employees under the former’s firm and according to them as well, they were physically assaulted with lathis by the police apart from verbally abused as well.

Saddam said, “When I got the call from my employees expressing that their motorcycle got nabbed by the traffic police, I thought I’d go visit the station and pay the penalty fine to get back the vehicle. But after going there, they started asking irrelevant questions, and when asked about the fine to which I was ready to pay, they started abusing us verbally with derogatory words. This naturally irked us and hurt our ego and we started protesting.”

“Then other police officers also got involved and we even got attacked by lathis. They were pulled out of there by our collars. We want to know, by what right did they have to assault us physically? Yes, there was a case of traffic offence against us, whose penalty we were ready to pay, but they didn’t have any right to hit us physically. We want justice and that’s why the FIR was filed against the traffic incharge,” he added.

The incident happened yesterday evening, at around 3:30 pm the duo got nabbed for not wearing helmets and the later controversy happened at the Silchar Sadar Station around 7:30 pm. The number of the motorcycle is AS-11U-7269.

On the other hand, Silchar Traffic Police incharge Atiqur Rahman alleges that nothing as such happened and it was rather Saddam Khan and his associates who were abusive towards the policemen. According to him, “When they appeared at the station, they were not following any Covid protocols and no mask. So I asked them politely to wear masks and maintain some distance as they were standing too close to us. To this, they started shouting and abusing us verbally. It got escalated and then we had no other option than to see them out of the station.”

He thoroughly denied the allegation against him of physically assaulting Saddam Khan and his workers and maintained that it was them who were abusive since the start.

Atiqur Rahman has also filed an FIR against Saddam Khan and his associates for abusing the policemen inside the station. Although the entire matter is still unclear as to what actually transpired inside the police station yesterday evening, with both parties hurling allegations against each other, it still puts finger on the ever-present issue of police abuse in India.