KARACHI: Girl among three killed in Lyari gang war
By Arman Sabir
KARACHI, July 13: Two suspected gangsters were gunned down and a girl was killed in crossfire in Lyari on Friday. The long-drawn exchange of fire between the splinter groups of two gangs left a gangster and a 17-year-old girl dead while police claimed shooting down another alleged gangster during an encounter.
The Lyari Town Police Officer, Pir Farid Jan Sarhandi, said the splinter groups, headed by Ghaffar Zikri of the Arshad Pappu gang and Baba Ladla of the Rehman Dakait gang, started firing in Zikri Mohalla at around 2.30pm in Baghdadi police limits. In the crossfire, he said, Zainab suffered fatal bullet wounds and died at the hospital.
He said: “We sent police vans and an armoured personnel carrier to check the firing and arrest the criminals. As soon as the police reached there, they came under heavy fire. The SHOs were hit by bullets but fortunately the bullet-proof jackets that they had put on saved them,” he added.
Mr Sarhandi said that Sajjad alias Sajju, a gangster of the Arshad Pappu group, was killed in the shootout with the police. A Kalashnikov rifle and a repeater gun were recovered from his possession, he added.
Police found the body of Gaddu, another member of the Arshad Pappu gang, in the evening. Both the bodies were shifted to hospital for a post-mortem examination.
However, the relatives of Sajjad disputed the police claim saying that he was not involved in any criminal activity. “He was a footballer and police implicated him in false cases to save their skin as they had killed an innocent man,” they said.
The TPO said: “We need to bear down on these gangs as a massive crackdown was the only solution to the perpetuating law and order problem in Lyari. However, with a total strength of 225 policemen in the entire town and most of them on guard duties at banks and other installations, around 70 to 80 personnel are left to dealing with the criminals. Unless we are reinforced and better equipped we cannot launch a massive crackdown,” he said.
He said he had forwarded a proposal to the authorities concerned regarding a grand operation in Lyari and hoped that it would be approved soon.
Around 400 people, including policemen, have been killed in the gang war that started four years back in Lyari. Police adopted different strategies to check and eliminate the gangs operating in different areas of the town but in vain.
Holding the low-ranking police officials posted for years in Lyari responsible for leaking information prior to any raid, area people say they are hand in glove with the criminals. Besides, they say that these gangs enjoy political support and their elimination is not possible without political will.
The Adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister on Home Affairs, Wasim Akhtar, told Dawn that establishing a cell like the one established in the past — the so-callled Lyari Task Force — was not an option. “Instead we will strengthen the hands of the Lyari TPO,” he said, adding that a high-level meeting would review the steps to check the gang war possibly on Monday.
