KARACHI: A man was shot dead and a dozen others, including 10 policemen, suffered wounds from gunshots and stone pelting during a violent demonstration in Manghopir, in the aftermath of the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl on Tuesday.
The six-year-old child, Rabia went missing from her Orangi Town house on Saturday afternoon, and on Monday her body was found near the Pakistan Hotel, Northern Bypass. The minor, according to autopsy, was subjected to sexual assault before being strangled to death.
Struck with grief the victim’s grandfather Abdul Qadir accused three people including Raheem Kareem Bakhsh, Faqeer Muhammad and Fazal Ghulam Rasool for the child's disappearance. Two of them Bakhsh and Rasool were rounded up by police, while the third was at large till the filing of the reports. The SP Orangi Town, Abid Ali Baloch claimed arresting two of the three suspects and added their DNA samples was sent for analysis.
The shocked and agitated relatives of the deceased child gathered at the MPR Chowk on Manghopir Road with the victim’s body, along with several protesters who set tyres ablaze and blocked traffic. As the protest turned violent the family of the victim returned home along with the child's body.
Meanwhile, the protesters pelted the passerby vehicles and the police with stones and pushed them back, while another group attacked and damaged police vans. The police resorted to baton-charge the protesters, lobbed tear gas shells and conducted aerial firing to disperse the agitators. It was during this melee that someone opened fire at the police killing a civilian and injuring three policemen, said DIG West Amir Farooqi. Some eye witnesses contradicted the police version saying it was the callous police firing which killed protester Ilyas Ali Haider.
The Police claimed that the victim’s father Baqa Muhammad sought their help to rescue his relatives and friends from the protesters, who were exploiting the tragedy for political point-scoring. Quoting the father, police said, he and his family wanted to bury the child but the PTI leaders Saeed Afridi, Advocate Attaullah and Dawood prevented them from proceeding to the graveyard. SP Baloch said as the police tried to move in to disperse the crowd and help the victim’s family leave for the graveyard, they were repelled by intense stone pelting and firing. Later a heavy contingent of Rangers dispersed the protesters. Police detained some of the miscreants.
The injured were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, from where one of them was rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), but he succumbed to his injuries.The JPMC Executive Director, Seemin Jamali, said Ilyas Ali Haider was brought to the health facility with a head injury that proved fatal. DIG Farooqi claimed that some PTI men had declared Haider as their activist, but the victim's family denied that he had any political affiliation.
Meanwhile, IG Sindh AD Khowaja directed the DIG West Zone to submit a detailed report into the incident. He has also appointed DIG Capt (retd) Asim Khan as the investigating officer to find out if the use of force by police was justified and fix responsibility for the firing incident that led to loss of one life.
