QUETTA: Levies force registered an FIR against United States authorities on Sunday over the recent drone attack on a car in Nushki district in which Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour and his driver Muhammad Azam were killed.
The first information report was lodged on an application filed by Mohammad Qasim Muhammad Hasni, brother of Muhammad Azam, at the Mal Levies Station.
“He filed the application on behalf of the family of Muhammad Azam,” Nushki Tehsildar Muhammad Omer told Dawn.
In the application, Mr Hasni said that his brother had nothing to do with any terrorist activity.
“My brother was innocent and was killed without any justification,” he said.
He said his brother was the only family member earning bread and butter for his wife, four children, blind mother and a handicapped brother.
“My brother was just a driver who was driving the car that was hit by a drone and he was killed along with another man,” the applicant said. An official of Mal Levies Station, Muhammad Khan, also confirmed that “US authorities were nominated in the FIR”.
Levies started investigations after registering the FIR, an official of the security force said.
According to AP, an official said the applicant sought to press murder charges over the drone attack carried out on May 21 near the town of Ahmad Wal.
The identity of the US officials involved in the drone strike is unknown and it is unclear if the charges will relate to those who ordered the attack or the servicemen who carried it out.
“US officials whose name I do not know accepted responsibility in the media for this incident, so I want justice and request legal action against those responsible for it,” Mr Hasni said in the application dated May 25. “My aim is to prove the innocence of my brother as he is being portrayed as a militant, but he was just a driver,” Mr Hasni told AFP. He said that so far the family had not sought compensation for the death.
US officials described the car’s driver as a “second male combatant” but according to Pakistani security officials he was a chauffeur who worked for a Quetta-based rental company. Local officials declined to comment on what steps the authorities would take to pursue the case.
Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2016
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