A video purportedly showing Pakistani armed forces personnel physically abusing four blindfolded men has emerged just days after a paramilitary trooper was filmed shooting and killing a teenager in a park in Karachi.
The new video, posted on social media sites like Facebook, shows a man in fatigues sexually assaulting and beating at least four blindfolded men whose hands are bound to window and door frames.
The screams of the blindfolded men and the laugh of someone off-camera are audible in the video, said media reports on Wednesday.
Though the authenticity of the video could not be ascertained, it has emerged at a time when the Pakistani armed forces are facing intense scrutiny for several incidents of extra-judicial killings and abuse.
Paramilitary troops and policemen were filmed gunning down five unarmed foreigners, including a pregnant woman, in the southwestern city of Quetta last month after declaring them as 'suicide bombers'. It was later established that none of the foreigners had weapons or explosives.
Last week, a TV cameraman filmed a paramilitary Pakistan Rangers personnel shooting Sarfraz Shah, 18, at point blank range in a park in Karachi. The youngster was left to bleed to death, the video repeatedly aired on news channels showed.
Police claimed Shah was an armed robber who was killed in an exchange of fire, but the video clearly showed he had no weapon.
Brigadier Syed Azmat Ali of the Inter-Services Public Relations told The Express Tribune newspaper that the army is aware of the new video.
"There are many such videos. It is part of a dedicated campaign," he said. Ali said there were 'so many elements' who could be behind such a campaign. "We will have to verify if the video is true or not. Naturally, the verification process has started," he said. Ali said the video appeared to have been filmed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
Another video posted on social media sites last year had purportedly shown Pakistani soldiers executing six blindfolded men.
Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had ordered an inquiry into that video, but the findings have not been made public so far.
