KARACHI: One killed following attack on procession: 40 vehicles torched
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, May 21: One person was killed and over a dozen others injured when some miscreants pelted a religious procession passing through Nishtar Road with stones.
Afterwards young processionists set fire to at least 40 vehicles.
One of the injured said that one of the participants of the procession snatched the gun of a policeman and started firing at the miscreants who had been hurling stones. As a result, Imran, 21, and Nauzad Khan, 30, got injured. Nauzad was pronounced dead at the Civil Hospital.
Two petrol pumps on Nishtar Road, between Lasbella and Teen Hatti, were destroyed by the mob. A truck and tankers parked in a private compound on the road were also set ablaze by youths.
Eyewitnesses said as the procession passed through Nishtar Road some miscreants started hurling stones at the procession from Noor-i-Subhan Mosque near Filmistan cinema.
A traditional procession is taken out on 8th of Rabi-ul-Awwal from Qasra-i-Mussiyab, Rizvia Society, through Golimar, Lasbela, Nishtar Road, Jehangir Road to Imambargah Shah-i-Najaf, Martin Road.
Some members of the procession told Dawn that when they had turned to the policemen on duty for help, the law-enforcing personnel advised them to handle the situation on their own. Afterwards the policemen disappeared into the narrow streets of the locality and started teargas-shelling and firing.
At both ends of the Nishtar Road, a sizable contingents of the Rangers and police looked on at the violence.
They added that following the ambush from the mosque the procession had also come under attack from the adjoining locality.
Meanwhile, enraged youths set on fire the parked vehicles on the blocked track of Nishtar Road.
Over a dozen rickshaws, minibuses, buses of 7-C route, taxis, and motorcycles were set on fire.
An oil tanker was torched which fuelled the fire to other vehicles.
Some of the gutted vehicles included JL-7569, JP-0493, JP- 0494, L-3798, JA-1109, KE-4232, KAQ-7686, D-3897, D-05090, D- 12669, D-06511, D-63130, D-0874, BA-1554 and KC-43821.
The firebrigade could not enter the troubled road as the police refused to provide them an escort, an official of the firebrigade said.
Several shops and motor workshops were also burnt and damaged by the mob.
As the news of the violence spread in the procession, the participants who were in the forward sections of the procession started returning to the troubled spot.
The eyewitnesses said that lower middle part of the procession which was passing through the Noor-i-Subhan mosque, staged a sit-in in front of the mosque amid stoning and shelling.
However, the organisers of the procession controlled the situation and urged the participants of the procession to move on so that the procession could terminate at Imambargh Shah-i-Najaf.
Newspaper photographers were not allowed by the mob to take pictures. In one case, a photographer was badly beaten and his camera and flash were broken.
KARACHI, May 21: One person was killed and over a dozen others injured when some miscreants pelted a religious procession passing through Nishtar Road with stones.
