Civil society holds protest against Sahiwal incident

Only resistance from the masses could keep a check on the growing incidents of lawlessness against citizens by law-enforcers, said civil society activists and others at a protest held against the tragic Sahiwal incident.

Demanding justice for the affected family, members of civil society, home-based workers, writers and scores of other protested outside the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday.

They demanded speedy trial of the officials of the Punjab Counter-Terrorism who on January 19 opened fire at a car on a highway, killing three of a family, including a couple and their teenage daughter, and leaving three other minor children injured.

The CTD officials claimed that they had intelligence a terrorist was travelling in the car, while the victims’ family stated that they were headed to a wedding and were targeted.

In a joint statement issued to the media, the protesters said that the Sahiwal tragedy and many other such incidents are a proof of growing lawlessness of law-enforcing institutions.

“Their actions are subjected to the killings of innocent citizens,” the statement read. The state institutions have failed to protect peaceful citizens, while it is very frustrating that the elected representatives are trying to hush up these sensitive issues.” It added that this anti-human attitude is adopted by the provincial and federal ministers of the sitting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf governments over the Sahiwal tragedy and they were trying to save the culprits responsible for the tragedy.

To stop such maltreatment, the protesters called for the masses to start an organised struggle or else such kind of incidents would not only continue but will also intensify in the future.

They said that just like it had happened in the past, the rulers would have declared the culprits of the Sahiwal incidents as heroes and termed the victims as terrorists, but this time the protest of citizens forced them to investigate the matter. Ironically, the police first lodged the FIR against the victims and after public pressure, they registered another FIR against ‘unknown’ culprits, the statement read, adding that it was most significant that government h as also rejected the public’s demand to form a judicial commission. “Just forming a Joint Investigation Team shows that the government is not serious about taking the killers to task.”