THE Guyana Police Force said it has opened an investigation into the allegations of torture of a Corentyne resident while he was detained at the No. 51 Police Station.

The decision came after sections of the media reported on and provided images of a man, Jamal Hakim, with visible scars and lacerations about his body. The man alleged that he sustained the wounds at the aforementioned police station while being questioned in relation to larceny.

The man alleged being waterboarded, beaten with a wire, kicked and forced to consume pepper sauce, all in an effort to have him provide information to the police into a matter which he said he knew nothing about.

Following this, the man alleged being transferred to another police station in the division and then placed before the court.

At the moment, the young man is claiming to have partly lost his hearing, given the level of sustained torture he was allegedly forced to endure.

This is not the first time that the No. 51 Police Station is making the news for all the wrong reasons.

There were instances where ranks at the station were accused by villagers of being part of a spate of robberies, which was taking place on the Corentyne coast; a prisoner had been found dead in the lockups at the station and there was former Commissioner of Police Leroy Brummell’s ‘clean sweep’ of all the ranks at the station, after residents expressed reservations in working with that crop of law enforcers.

On Sunday, the police said that they have dispatched a very senior officer from Georgetown to take over and complete the investigation into the teenager’s allegations of torture against ranks of the No. 51 Police Station.

Our efforts on Sunday to make contact with Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan for a comment on the issue were futile.

Minister Ramjattan himself while in private practice, represented a teenager whose genitals were doused with methylated spirits and then set alight by a police rank. That teen had been in police custody being questioned in relation to a murder investigation in West Demerara.

The case against the state was won by the teen and he was awarded damages.

There was also the matter of a 15-year-old whose hands also suffered the same fate at the Sparendaam Police Station while that young man was there being questioned in relation to a matter which was under police investigation.