February 11, 2008	Monday	Safar 03, 1429

THATTA, Feb 10: The vice-chairman of Quaid-i-Azam Yadgar Committee Thatta and three of his relatives, two of them women, were injured as Jherruk police stormed their bus, maltreated the women and children and fired in the air on Sunday afternoon.

Eyewitnesses said that the bus carrying women, children and men was returning to Karachi after attending a religious event in Jherruk town. The bus incidentally damaged a side mirror of another vehicle while entering the Jherruk link road adjacent to the National Highway. It infuriated the occupants of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, some five to six policemen arrived there and after using abusive language barged into the bus and assaulted women and children.

On resistance, police started firing in the air and dragged some men towards the police station.

Meanwhile, dozens of villagers rushed to the spot and started protest in front of the police station against the highhandedness of police. SHO Agha Salahuddin said: “yes the police has committed a crime but he was trying his best to reconcile between the police and the bus passengers”.

Sadiq Hussain Khwaja, a former divisional engineer of railways and an activist to get recognised the status of Jherruk town as an actual birth place of Quaid-i-Azam said that the police had denied them FIR and he had no option but to knock the door of law for justice.