SUKKUR: A big police force drawn from 15 police stations of Jacobabad district on Monday surrounded two villages near Thull town and bulldozed many houses to arrest killers of a man shot dead on Sunday in a clash between the Khoso and Banglani communities of the area.

Supervised by Thull DSP Pir Bukhsh Leghari and Garhi Hassan DSP Mohammed Ali Soomro, the police force equipped with an armoured personnel carrier (APC) cordoned off all the exit/entry points of the two villages before demolishing 15 houses belonging to the Khoso community.

The operation was carried out after the Banglani community approached the police high-ups soon after the Sunday clash between armed groups of the two communities that left a youth, Alif Banglani, son of Abdul Wahid Banglani, dead and five other people wounded in Haji Pathan Banglani village within the remit of the A-Section police station.

The rival sides have been at odds for long over an alleged extra-marital affair.

Residents of the raided villages, including Dost Mohammed Khoso, Akbar Ali, Afzal Khoso, Mir Hazar Khoso, Mohammad Khoso and Mohammad Sharif claimed that some 100 armed Banglanis accompanied the police force and went on a looting spree soon after the houses were bulldozed. Escorted by police, they took away two tractors and many cattle heads besides cash, domestic articles and other valuables, they alleged.

A-Section SHO Ayaz Ahmed Pathan, who was leading his team in the operation, kept his cellphone off and no other official appeared ready to comment while confirming the operation.

The police siege of the two villages was continuing when last reports came in late on Monday evening.

The police said they arrested two suspects, Hafeez Khoso and Bhooral Khoso, in connection with the youth’s murder.

Meanwhile, the body of Alif Banglani was handed over to the heirs while the wounded victims, Jamshed, Mohammed Sharif, Zahoor Ahmed Khoso, Saleem Khoso and Tariq Khoso, remained under treatment at a Larkana hospital.

Eight injured in road accident

Eight passengers of a coach were injured when the vehicle overturned on Mirpur Mathelo bypass in Ghotki district on Monday.

The Rawalpindi-bond coach coming from Karachi overturned when its driver tried to overtake a container-mounted trailer on the bypass, the area police said.

The eight injured victims, including Zohaib Ahmed, Najeebullah and Kamran, were shifted to the Mirpur Mathelo Civil Hospital for treatment.

Drug haul in raid on train

The Railway police on Monday claimed to have seized 10 kilograms of cannabis in a raid on a coach of the Karachi-bound Sukkur Express at the Rohri station.

Railway police Sukkur superintendent Ghulam Sarwar Bhayo told a press conference that the raid was carried out on Sunday night by a team stationed at Rohri on a tip-off about transportation of the drugs by a gang of smugglers.

He said a man and two women carrying the consignment were arrested.

He identified the arrested women as Meerzadi, wife of Imam Bukhsh Brohi, and Rozaan, wife of Nawab Brohi, both residents of Shikarpur, and the man as Hafeez Brohi, a resident of Naushki.

The police officer said that each of the women had six kilograms and the man four kilograms of cannabis tied around their bodies.

The consignment originated from Quetta and was destined for Hyderabad, he added.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2014