KARACHI: Personnel of Rangers shot dead a taxi driver in a Gulistan-i-Jauhar locality when he did not stop his vehicle on Tuesday, officials said.
It is the second such incident in recent weeks as last month another unarmed civilian was killed by Rangers in Shah Faisal Colony for the same reason.
“The taxi driver, identified as Murid Abbas, was buying fruit across the road near Kamran Chowrangi when the Rangers personnel signalled him to stop,” said SSP-East Imran Shaukat.
The driver backed up and it appeared to the Rangers personnel that he was trying to escape, he said, adding that one of them, identified as Lance Naik Ghulam Rasool, fired five shots at him.
Mr Abbas, whose two-year-old son was also with him in the taxi, suffered multiple bullet wounds and was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead. Later, the body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for a post-mortem examination.
Gulistan-i-Jauhar SHO Malik Salim told Dawn that the victim sustained five bullet wounds in the abdomen, chest and arm.
The SSP said that three other Rangers personnel realised the gravity of the situation, disarmed the lance naik and produced him before their company commander, who handed over his custody to the police.
“He is in police custody and an FIR has been lodged against him on murder charges on a complaint of the victim’s widow, Dua,” said the SSP.
Three other personnel had been made witnesses of the incident, he added.
Ms Dua told the media that she was at her home and her husband along with their two-year-old son had gone to buy fruit when she got the tragic news of his killing.
“He was the sole breadwinner of our family and now we have been left abandoned,” she said. “My husband was innocent, we are poor and we want justice.”
Meanwhile, a Rangers spokesman said that the director general of the Rangers had taken serious notice of the incident and removed the company commander from his post. “The Rangers personnel have been taken into custody and an inquiry has been initiated. A legal action would be taken against all responsible personnel.”
He said that the Rangers had intensified snap checks following continuous attacks on the paramilitary force. An armed suspect was detained on Tuesday who wanted ‘to attack the Rangers’, he added.
“Today, during checking near Kamran Chowrangi, a motorcycle squad signalled a taxi driver but he accelerated the car in reverse. The Rangers personnel opened fire on him, resulting in injuries to the driver who later on died in the hospital,” said a press statement issued by the Rangers.
On June 4, Rangers personnel had gunned down a man, Ghulam Haider, 30, in Shah Faisal Colony-2 when he did not stop his vehicle after an accident.
Mr Haider had reportedly hit a motorcyclist and was trying to stop the vehicle when a Rangers man opened fire on him. The victim, who got married around 20 days earlier, had sustained a single bullet wound to the head and died on the spot.
The Rangers DG had also taken notice of that incident and the police had arrested the suspect on murder charges and a case against him was pending trial in court.
The Tuesday incident came as a grim reminder of the 2011 killing of an unarmed youth, Sarfaraz Shah, in the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Park in Clifton. Shocking footage of the gruesome murder aired by almost every television channel had prompted the apex court to take suo motu notice.
“Law enforcement agencies have killed nine persons during the last six months,” said a recently released report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
