KARACHI: The mystery surrounding the gun attack on a passenger coach in Nazimabad on Monday morning that left at least three passengers wounded was solved later in the day with the arrest of a policeman on a complaint of the vehicle’s driver.

Three passengers, Mehtab, Gulab and Umair, sustained gunshot wounds in firing on the bus as it reached near Nazimabad Underpass on its way from SITE to Nazimabad, said Central SSP Muqaddas Haider while speaking to Dawn.

The driver, however, managed to move the vehicle to Nazimabad Eidgah where the wounded passengers were dropped before vanishing, the senior officer added.

The attack became mysterious as the policeman, Naseer Shah, who had allegedly opened fire on the coach, also disappeared following the incident.

Asked about details of the incident that occurred around 7am, the SSP initially told Dawn that exact circumstances causing injuries to the three passengers “are not clear as there is no witness other than the driver who escaped along with the vehicle”.

Later in the evening, Nazimabad SHO Mazhar Iqbal said that the police traced the driver and picked him up for interrogation to ascertain details of the gun attack. The SHO quoted the driver, Khalid, as telling the police interrogators that the firing had been conducted by the policeman.

The driver, however, responding to the queries of reporters, who had gathered at the police station, alleged that the policeman along with other officials standing near the Nazimabad Underpass intended to extract money from him. But when he did not stop at their indication, they resorted to firing on the vehicle and he had to speed away to save his life.

After recording the statement of the driver, the police increased their efforts to trace the policeman, Naseer Shah, and picked him up. In his initial statement, he told the police that the ‘overspeeding’ coach was trying to ‘crush’ him. The Nazimabad SHO denied what the driver had told the media, arguing that the policemen were conducting random spot checks on vehicles. They stopped a trailer and were busy in checking its papers when the fast-moving coach allegedly made a sudden swerve towards the policeman, Naseer Shah, who assumed that the vehicle would run over him. The SHO quoted the policeman as saying that he resorted to firing in ‘panic’.

The Nazimabad police later registered an FIR (96/2017) against the policeman under Section 324 (attempt to commit qatl-i-amd) on the complaint of the driver, Khalid.

Meanwhile, the wounded passengers were admitted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where police surgeon, Dr Aijaz Khokhar, told Dawn that all of them sustained wounds on their legs and their condition was out of danger.

According to a statement issued in the evening from the office of the Sindh police spokesperson, Inspector General of Police A.D. Khowaja appreciated the performance of Karachi Central district police and announced a reward of Rs100,000 for the police team which ‘solved’ the case and arrested the suspect within a few hours after the firing incident.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2017