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| November 15, 2003 | Saturday | Ramazan 19, 1424 |
IGP orders inquiry into clash: Two victims buried
DONGA BONGA (Bahawalnagar), Nov 14: Punjab IGP Syed Masood Shah on Friday ordered two separate inquiries into the clash at Donga Bonga, which left three people dead.
Two of the victims were buried amid nervous tension early on Friday morning.
Reports said Muhammad Arshad and Yousaf Shah were shot dead when a police contingent, led by Bahawalnagar District Police Officer Muhammad Umer Sheikh, opened fire at a mob protesting against the rising incidence of crime. The protesters were also denouncing the alleged apathy of the Donga Bonga rural health centre in-charge, Dr Tahir Hassan Chaudhry.
The IGP rushed to Bahawalnagar on Thursday night, but visited the troubled spot the next morning in the company of Bahawalpur range police DIG Pervez Akbar Lodhi and District Nazim Ali Akbar Waince. He, however, returned to Lahore without meeting the people in Donga Bonga.
Talking to newsmen in Bahawalnagar, the IGP said he had ordered two separate inquiries into the incident in order to ascertain the factual position.
The residents of Donga Bonga and its bordering villages took to streets when the area SHO, Yousaf Pehalwan, had allegedly delayed registration of an FIR in a dacoity-turned-murder case. It was gleaned that some armed men had shot dead a coachman, Altaf, at Danina village when he resisted their attempt to rob his passengers on Wednesday night.
Before coming to the Donga Bonga police station, the people, carrying body of the deceased, had visited the area RHC where Dr Tahir refused to conduct autopsy at night.
Reacting to it, the protesters first set the police station on fire and when a fire brigade lorry came to extinguish flames, they torched it. Later, they marched towards the RHC and started pelting stones at the hospital building.
In the meanwhile, police reinforcement arrived on the troubled spot and a clash ensued between the mob and the law-enforcers. It is yet to be established that whether the police initiated firing or they did so when the mob was pushing into the hospital to teach a lesson to the doctor and the SHO, who by that time was also in the hospital for dressing after being beaten up by the people at the police station.
The police officials claimed that they opened fire when they felt that the lives of Dr Tahir and SHO Yousaf Pehalwan were in danger. On the other hand, the people claimed that they became unruly when the police killed two of them without any provocation.
The angry people destroyed all the hospital equipment and smashed window panes, besides setting its building on fire. They also barged into the official residence of Dr Tahir and torched valuables, including his brand new car.
“The hospital will need everything new to become operative again,” claimed one of its employees while showing wreckage of various equipment.
A majority of those, who this correspondent talked to, in Donga Bonga had complaints against both the RHC doctor and the SHO for their “inhuman and corrupt practices.”
Had the representatives of local bodies or national and provincial assemblies of the area heard people’s woes, the incident could have been averted, they said.
The district Nazim minced no words in saying that “the Donga Bonga residents are leaderless and some miscreants took advantage of the situation.” Although law and order was now subject of the Nazim under the new system, he (the Nazim) was entrusted with little powers to exercise,” he said.
Admitting that the police did not first employ the normal course to disperse the mob, the Nazim disclosed that Bahawalnagar police had only 20 teargas shells in all its stock.
He said the FIRs against the incident would be lodged according to the demand of the heirs of the deceased. However, there is no doubt about the fact that the people of Donga Bonga took law and order into their own hands.
Now there is no law-enforcement agency team at Donga Bonga where an elderly man, Abdul Rasheed Hansi, describes the situation as “Allah ke hawaley.”
Two teams of the police, however, remained alert at Gajani and on the Malikpura Road, several miles away from the troubled spot on the Bahawalnagar-Haroonabad Road.
Meanwhile, the administrative control of the area has been given to the Bahawalnagar Saddar police station, as according to the police officials, the Donga Bonga police station would take some time to re-establish.
Our Staff Reporter quotes the IGP as saying that two (not three) people were killed and nine injured in the incident.
Replying to a question about the general perception of widening gap between the police and the public, he said: “Every thing can not be changed in a blink of an eye. We don’t have quick solutions, but the Police Order, 2002, will help improve the department’s performance.”
About transfer and postings of senior police officers, the IGP said, he was exercising his powers within rules and regulations.
The provincial police chief also promised that the salaries of the new highway policemen would be equal to those of the motorway officials.
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