KARACHI: The killing of a 25-year-old man in Lyari triggered a protest on Monday by his relatives and other residents who termed it extrajudicial execution by the Rangers.

Junaid Azeem, a suspected member of the Abdul Jabbar alias Jhingo gang and wanted in over a dozen criminal cases, was shot dead by personnel of the paramilitary force in an encounter in Saifi Lane late Sunday night, Baghdadi police said.

The area residents said the deceased had no links with any gang and he was associated with a printing press.

Carrying Junaid’s coffin, a large number of Lyari residents staged a protest demonstration outside the Baghdadi police station before marching on the Karachi Press Club.

The protesters comprising mostly relatives of Junaid Azeem said that he was taken away by the law enforcement agencies from outside his home in Saifi Lane on Aug 14. They said he was brought and killed near his home on Sunday night.They said drug dens were being run by gangsters in the area with the connivance of law-enforcers. However, innocent youngsters were taken away and later killed in ‘fake encounters’, he said.

They demanded that the authorities take notice of the extrajudicial killings in the old city areas.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2014