KARACHI, Jan 27: Pakistan People's Party on Thursday slammed the provincial government and the police for the killing of its worker and arrest of several others in Mirpurkhas , allegedly for deliberately creating law and order situation to target the PPP before the upcoming local bodies elections.

This was stated by the Sindh PPP chief, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, along with other office-bearers of the party, at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club.

Criticizing what he alleged to be "the government-sponsored terrorism and arson in Mirpurkhas in the aftermath of protests against the killing of a PPP worker in police custody", Mr Shah said that the regime was bent upon creating more and more crises across the country.

He said the refusal by Mirpurkhas police to register an FIR of the murder of PPP worker Abu Bakr Panhwar in police custody led to the suspicion that a well-organized lobby of the regime wanted to trigger ethnic riots in the province.

"The government has let loose a reign of terror to deliberately vitiate the atmosphere and to protect those who are responsible for the killing of a PPP worker in police custody," he said.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that law and order situation in Mirpurkhas had deteriorated during the past two days, and "miscreants" were on a shooting rampage, but the police were doing nothing.

He said that the situation went out of control after a PPP activist, who was arrested and interrogated by the police, "succumbed to police torture in custody". The relatives of the deceased, PPP workers and friends protested over the death of the worker, demanding that an FIR be registered against the SHO concerned and other officials, but the police refused to do so.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah claimed that police requested a PPP MPA, Shamimara Panhwar, to ask the protesters to call off their strike, assuring her that an FIR against the culprits was being registered. But a political group got an FIR registered against president of the People's Students Federation and a naib nazim, Jehangir Mughal, late in the night. Later the police registered an FIR against Shamimara Panhwar and 70 other activists of the PPP.

Mr Shah claimed that Pir Aftab Shah Jilani and he himself drew attention of senior police officials towards the deteriorating situation, but they took no notice of it and firing continued.

The DPO was either helpless or partisan in the given situation, he said. Mr Shah alleged that police even detained relatives of PPP activists for several hours. He claimed that the residence of a PPP MNA, Qurban Ali Shah, was also targeted by some unknown people, but police did nothing to apprehend them.

Mr Shah warned the government not to push the party against the wall. He said the PPP activists had been advised to keep their cool. He, however, claimed that protest by his party men on the killing and uncalled for arrests was a natural phenomenon. He said that during the protest no property was damaged.

On the other hand, miscreants burnt offices of district nazims and people were terrorized by gun-wielding miscreants. Firing incidents were even reported on Thursday but police were unable to do anything against them.