Pot Pourri

Pak bans smartphones in police stations
Lahore: Pakistan’s Punjab province has banned officers below the rank of SHO from using video recording enabled smartphones inside police stations.
The move came after the increase in video clips displaying Punjab Police’s brutality and misconduct, The Express Tribune reported.
Citizens too will not be allowed to take cellphones inside police stations and required to deposit them outside when they enter, according to Inspector General of Police (IGP) Arif Nawaz.
Lower-ranking officers will instead be allowed to use ordinary phones that do not have the video recording feature.
Rawalpindi CPO Faisal Rana held a meeting with police officers in this regard and later forwarded written instructions to relevant officers against illegally detaining citizens and torturing them.
Instructions were also given on the use of mobile phones by lower ranked officers, while recording and uploading videos of on-duty officers was also “strictly forbidden”.
The moves comes a day after the Punjab IGP issued a warning letter to senior police personnel over custodial deaths.
Nawaz expressed extreme displeasure over the deaths in police custody. He was also dismayed over the arbitrary discontinuation of the monitoring of police stations through CCTV cameras by district and police officials. (IANS)

Man jailed for ‘helping’ baby into clothes dryer
London: A man in Scotland was on Monday sentenced to seven years in jail by the High Court in Edinburgh for putting a 13-month-girl in a clothes dryer and shutting the door, causing the machine to start, reports said.
Thomas Dunn, 25, claimed that he had not “pushed” or “squashed” the girl into the machine in Arbroath in 2017 but only “assisted” her as she was climbing into it herself, and did not “fully close” the machine’s door but it still switched on and began rotating, the BBC reported.
“She was already climbing into it and I tucked her leg in. I closed the door but not fully, it wasn’t like properly shut,” he said.
Asked by the prosecution what prompted him to “help” the girl, he said: “I don’t know, it was a bad judgement call.”
His defence lawyer said that he suffered from depression and mental health issues.
Dunn was previously found guilty of culpable and reckless conduct following a trial at the Dundee Sheriff Court.
Dundee Sheriff Alistair Brown told Dunn that he could only impose a five-year sentence on him and remitted the case to the High Court, where Judge Lord Brodie pronounced a sentence of seven years imprisonment and three years supervision following his release. (IANS)