SUKKUR, June 4: Six people, including three women and an infant, were injured when a demolishing campaign by railway authorities turned violent near Maal Godaam (merchandise godown) here on Monday and the railway police had to fire blank shots following an intense tear-gas shelling.

The railway’s demolition team, escorted by the department’s police personnel, started razing to earth a row of 10 houses built on the railway’s land triggering a hue and cry from the inmates of the Katchi Abadi housing scores of other structures.

People of the entire locality came out of their houses and offered stiff resistance. However, the demolition team went ahead ignoring the inmates’ calls for time to vacate their houses.

At one stage, hundreds of people gathered around the bulldozers physically blocking the demolishing work.

The railway police intervened by using clubs to disperse the crowd. As people continued to resist, the police started firing tear-gas shells forcing most of the protesters to run to safety. Six people, Muhammad Afzal, Muhammad Ashraf, Aziza Khatoon, Fehmida Khatoon and an infant, Bushra Rais, were injured and shifted to local civil hospital. People responded to the action with stones prompting the police to fire aerial shots.

The AEN Railways, Ghulam Haider Soomro, who was leading the demolition team, said that the encroachers should have vacated the land as they had already been served notices.

The Zila Naib Nazim, Iqbal Dawood, and some councillors rushed to the troubled area and after holding negotiations with the railway official, convinced him to order a halt to any further demolition.

Mr Dawood contacted the AIG, Sukkur Range, Nayyar Husnain, and apprised him of the law and order situation created by the campaign. The AIG took up the matter with the IGP, Railway on telephone who took a serious notice of the police action and ordered a thorough inquiry.

In a communique to the governor and other relevant authorities, the Naib Nazim condemned the inhuman manner in which the demolition work was carried out and said that a proper notice to the inmates of the Katchi Abadis was not served in advance.

Criticizing the divisional superintendent of Railway, Mr Dawood said the railway police unnecessarily used force which resulted in injuries to women and seriously affecting an infant.