ON July 4 a youth, Ashique Birahmani, resident of the Wahi Pandhi village, was shot dead by the Dadu police when he was staging a sit-in with his relatives for the arrest of the murderers of a relative, Bashir Birahmani, who was killed some time back.

Ashique was unique among his peers. He founded the Youth Development Forum in his village to help youths there. He was active on political, human rights and social fronts.

He also established an English-medium school in Wahi Pandhi from scratch and struggled hard to run it because the area is backward and some parents being unaware of the importance of education were not supporting his school with fees and donations.

However, he continued to run the school against all odds. About 20 students have got admitted to university who were trained and motivated by Ashique to be empowered through education.

When he was given responsibility by the PPP government to facilitate the locals in seeking CNICs, he worked round the clock and was able to facilitate more than 500 adults, including the majority of those living in mountainous areas, in getting their CNICs issued by Nadra.

Had he not helped them, perhaps, they might have remained deprived of CNICs to this day.

Now the police are claiming that Ashique had not been killed by them but by firing by some unknown armed men. This clearly points outs that the police want to protect his murderers by shifting the blame onto ‘unknown armed men’.

Senior police officers, human rights organisations and all those concerned are requested to take strict notice of the murder and insist on an impartial and quick investigation into the matter.

Allegedly the police are not registering an FIR against the main accused and are trying to settle the matter through a tribal jirga. All kinds of pressure are being put on Ashique’s family so that they keep mum.

A few years ago a journalist, Ghulam Rasool Birahmani, from the village was killed for his brave reporting. This state of affairs should end once and for all.

GULSHER PANHWER Johi