LARKANA: Relatives of torture victim Muhammad Ahmed Hussain Mashori, a class eighth student in Cadet College Larkana, and workers of Jamaat-i-Qasmia took out a rally and held a sit-in outside the press club here on Friday in protest the college administration’s failure to take action against the student’s tormentors.

In Larkana, the protesters belonging to Mashori tribe and disciples of Jamaat-i-Qasmia of Mashori Sharif took out the rally from Eidgah which marched on different roads before converging on the press club near Jinnahbagh where they held the sit-in.

The cadet’s father Rashid Mashori is a follower of the Jamaat.

The protesters’ leaders said the college administration played a highly negative role by handed over the traumatized and crippled boy to the family after a brutal torture and without giving a cogent reason for his condition. So far no official of the college authorities had bothered to inquire about the health of their cadet, they regretted.

They expressed confidence in the probe body constituted by the general officer commandant (GOC) of Pano Akil cantonment and the medical board formed on the directives of the Sindh chief minister.

They said the torture had been established now and no one could hush up the facts but no action had so far been taken against the college administration, which according to them, was trying to influence the probe.

They threatened to widen their protest if justice was not served to the tortured boy, his family and followers of the shrine of Mashori Sharif.

In Jacobabad, the Jamaat-i-Qasimia took out a protest rally and held a sit-in in protest against the administration of the Cadet College Larkana. The rally started from ADC Colony and reached in front of the press club where the protesters held a sit-in.

The protesters were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans in support of their demands. The sit-in led to blockade of traffic on both sides of the road in front of the press club.

The leaders of Jamaat-i-Qasmia said the teacher who had brutally tortured Muhammad Ahmed Mashori, son of Rashid Mashori, and injured him seriously, but so far no stern disciplinary action had been taken against the teacher concerned. They said that a teacher was like a father to students, but in this case, the teacher treated the student like an enemy.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2016