KARACHI, Aug 21: The city council hall on Thursday reverberated with the complaints regarding high-handedness of police and unresponsive attitude of bureaucracy towards elected house, when members of the city council of the city district government debated the incident of Aug 10, pertaining to Malir Town UC Nazim Pervez Ahmad Siddiqui, who was allegedly manhandled, beaten up and was put behind bars by the police.

The incident pertains to protest by the area people, who came out on roads to protest over a week-long power outage. The police called the Nazim to calm down the people, but seeing the agitated mood of people, when the UC Nazim asked the police to leave the scene so that he could handle the situation, the police started misbehaving with the Nazim and mercilessly beaten him, and put him in the lockup, only to be saved by timely arrival of the City Nazim Naimatullah Khan.

The tone of the house was set by Naib Nazim Tariq Hasan and Muslim Pervez, who appeared quite upset with the mood of the members who came to take up the issue with Chief Minister Sardar Ali Mohammad Mahar, who had accepted an invitation to address the council.

However, by himself lashing out at the police, the Naib Nazim unarmed the councillors to avoid embarrassment to the chief minister, and by allowing a few members to vein their sentiments before arrival of the chief guest.

During one hour discussion on the point of order, which was put off for Monday, the councillors, Engineer Abdul Aziz, Siddique Rathore, Imtiaz Tabassum, Saeed Ghani, Mehfoozun nabi, Yasin Nagori, Razzaq Sangani, Nasir Ansari, Rana Advocate, Ghulam Abbas Taplpur, Noor Ahsan and Razzaq Siddique, said that if police’s attitude towards the elected Nazim was so brutal, one could imagine what had been the fate of common man.

Terming the incident an insult for the entire elected house, they pointed out that it was not the first incident, but during last two years, on numerous occasion the police had shown such behaviour. They referred to institution of false cases against Nazims and councillors, including murder cases, and said that the Inspector General, DIG and CCPO had failed to discharge their duties, and added that even FIR was not registered so far against the officials involved.

Calling for registration of an FIR, besides suspension of the SHO and police personnel involved in the incident and to hold a judicial inquiry, they said that in order to save the sanctity of the elected house a policy of tit for tate be adopted.

Naib Nazim Tariq Hasan, who presided over the session, briefly welcoming the chief minister, drew his attention towards unresponsive attitude of the officials and claimed that some of the officials who had come along with the chief minister never responded to his request.

The police treated the elected representatives like animals by throwing them in truck one after the other. When CCPO was asked to attend the council meeting, he never turned up. If the elected council having strength of 255 members had no right to ask a police official to appear, it would be better to windup this council, he lamented.

Addressing the chief minister, the naib Nazim said that by accepting the invitation to address the house he (CM) had proved that he was keen to see this system strengthened, urging the CM to pay attention to genuine problems so that the city could march on to progress and prosperity.