Baloch bigwig’s gunmen held for injuring three over parking squabble

Gulshan-e-Iqbal police arrested two gunmen of a Baloch bigwig on Friday for shooting and injuring three men over a parking issue in the locality’s Block-14 the previous night. SP Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto told The News that the incident had occurred outside Erum Villas, where two gunmen of Abu Bakar Baloch shot and injured three men over a parking squabble.

Bhutto said police registered FIR No 2/18 under Section 324, read with Section 34, of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of Erum Villas’ guard Muhammad Arif. The officer said that according to the complainant, he was deployed at the main gate of Erum Villas when two vehicles parked in front of the gate and the occupants left behind only two gunmen.

Arif said he requested the gunmen to remove the vehicles from the main gate and park them in the parking area, but the gunmen kept telling him that they worked for Abu Bakar Baloch and refused to remove his vehicles.

When the guard insisted on the gunmen to remove the vehicles from the front gate, one of Baloch’s men attacked him with the butt of his rifle and caused an injury to his head. People gathered on the site and Erum Villas Union President Akram Khan Kohati also arrived on the scene, all of them trying to persuade the gunmen to remove the vehicles.

The SP said the gunmen fired some warning shots and threatened everyone with dire consequences if they did not leave, but when no one moved, one of the gunmen discussed the situation with someone on the phone.

After disconnecting the call, he told the other gunman that “sahib” had told them to fire at the crowd if they refused to move, added the officer. The gunmen fired some 50 bullets and left the scene in one of the vehicles that bore no registration number and was, instead, inscribed with the word “Qatar”. The other vehicle bore the registration number AFR-2017.

SP Bhutto said Kohati, Akram Zareen Khan and Justin Manzoor were injured because of the gunmen’s firing, adding that police impounded the remaining vehicle and sent the empty rifle shells found on the scene for forensic examination.

Police launched a search operation and arrested both the gunmen, but Abu Bakar Baloch is still at large. When the SP was asked about Baloch, he said he only knew that the man hailed from Balochistan and was in Karachi on a visit to a local TV station in Block-14 of Gulshan-e-Iqbal.