PTI wants terror charges against leaders, workers dropped

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Haleem Adil Sheikh has said police lodged a “fake” FIR about the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in the Manghopir area in a bid to hide their incompetency.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, the PTI senior executive vice president said that police apparently wanted to save the culprits behind this heinous crime and that was why they baton-charged and opened fire on people protesting for justice to the child and her family.

He refuted allegations that the PTI was trying to cash in on the incident for political motives, and said that they just wanted justice for the bereaved family. Sheikh demanded that the PTI leaders and workers booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 should be released and all charges against dropped.

He said that if the police did not withdraw the charges, then the PTI would stage a sit-in first at Banaras Chowk and then across the province.

During a visit to Rabia’s family a day earlier, Sindh Home MInister Suhail Anwar Siyal had condemned the PTI for what he said “politicising the issue” and said they wanted to get political mileage out of the issue.

Rabia had gone missing from her house in Orangi Town’s Baloch Goth on Sunday afternoon. Her body bearing torture marks was recovered from the Khairabad forest in Manghopir the next day.

Reports of the gruesome murder sparked a violent demonstration in Manghopir on Tuesday. The protesters placed the minor’s body on Manghopir Road and blocked both of its tracks.

After failing to disperse the protesters, police baton-charged and tear-gassed them, but the law enforcers were attacked with stones, leaving 10 cops, including a DSP and two SHOs of the Orangi Town Division, wounded.

“Police have nominated 13 PTI leaders, while 150 others are unidentified. Six of the 13 nominated PTI District West leaders have been arrested,” added the official.

A PTI delegation led by Imran Ismail asked the Orangi Town Division SP’s office to register a case against the police for Haider’s killing. Officials said the PTI leaders claimed that Haider was their worker, but when they were told that he was affiliated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, they left quietly.