KARACHI: A young man, said to be a worker of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, was killed and many others were wounded when a demonstration in protest against the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl turned violent and demonstrators clashed with police, who in turn resorted to baton-charge and firing in an Orangi Town area on Tuesday, officials and witnesses said.

While the PTI claimed that the deceased protester was their activist, police blamed the political party for staging a violent protest for “political mileage” neglecting the victim family’s appeal that they did not want any agitation.

However, the police’s claim attributed to the victim’s family appears to be far from reality as Mukhtar Bibi, mother of victim Rabia, came up with a strong reaction against the police and blamed them for doing nothing since the family lodged the complaint of her disappearance on Sunday evening.

Mother demands justice

“My child’s hands and feet were broken,” the mother told reporters at her home in Orangi’s Baloch Goth. “We are poor people. We just want justice. The police failed to perform their job.”

She went on to say: “My daughter went missing on Sunday afternoon and we approached the police station the same evening. They were so cruel that when they found the body, they declared it unidentified without bothering to inform us. We went to the Edhi morgue on our own and found her there.”

The Manghopir police found the body of the girl from bushes near the Northern Bypass area on Monday evening. An initial autopsy confirmed that the girl had been subjected to sexual assault. The body was then moved to the Edhi morgue for want of identification.

PTI claims the deceased protester was their worker; IGP orders ‘transparent’ probe

The family of the girl finally got the news in the early hours of Tuesday and by sunrise the area turned tense as anger ran high among the people of the low-income neighbourhood.

Charged people staged a protest demonstration at the time of her funeral and blocked roads leading to Kati Pahari from Qasba Colony.

They were chanting slogans against the police and administration and turned violent when a heavy contingent of police tried to clear the road. The protesters pelted policemen and moving vehicles with stones forcing the law enforcers to retaliate. The police baton-charged the protesters and fired into the air.

Around 12 people, including four policemen, suffered injuries in stone pelting.

Three of the protesters — 22-year-old Abdul Rehman, 48-year-old Ilyas Haider and 21-year-old Adnan Zaman — suffered gunshot wounds.

Rehman died later while the condition of Haider and Zaman was said to be out of danger.

Police accuse ‘political elements’ of violence

The police showed unawareness about the firing incident and denied their involvement in the killing of the protester. Instead, they blamed workers of PTI for “instigating violence”.

“The political elements instigated the people [to] violence for political mileage and point-scoring when the family was taking the victim girl for burial in an ambulance,” said DIG West Amir Farooqi. “When the violence erupted, the girl’s grandfather asked the area SHO for help and dissociated himself from the protest.”

About the probe into the rape and murder of the minor girl, the DIG said that the police had already arrested a couple of suspects and took their DNA samples.

He said apparently the girl was kidnapped, raped and killed somewhere else and the body was dumped near the Northern Bypass.

Taking notice of the rape and murder as well as the violence, Sindh Inspector General of Police A.D. Khowaja ordered an inquiry into the two incidents and appointed DIG Asim Kaimkhani to lead the probe and come up with “transparent and unbiased findings”.

PTI to lodge murder case against police

The PTI came up with a strong reaction against the police and vowed to lodge a murder case against the police officers concerned.

PTI leader Imran Ismail said the police and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were “turning Karachi into another Gaza” and the party would not let them do that.

“The police opened fire on protesters,” he said. “It’s the people’s right to protest. Instead of taking action against the culprits, the police opened fire on those demanding justice. The blood of our worker is on the hands of the police. The party will register a case against the killing of Abdul Rehman, who was killed by the police.”

Also, the PTI was not impressed with the IGP’s directive as one of its provincial lawmakers termed it an attempt to cover up the failure of the police.

“We are sick and tired of such inquiries,” MPA Khurram Sher Zaman said. “You people have ruined each and every department of this province. There is not much difference between Sindh and Punjab police.”

He said it was a peaceful protest and area people were protesting along with the parents of the girl. The parents had filed a report at the area police station when their daughter went missing but “unfortunately just like the Zainab case, police here failed to arrest the culprits”.

Bilawal orders Sindh govt to find killers

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari strongly condemned the rape and murder of the seven-year-old girl in the Manghopir area and asked the Sindh government to take stern action against the culprits involved in this barbaric act.

In a statement, the PPP chairman said that her tormentors and killers would not be allowed to flee from the law and urged that they must be severely punished as per law.

He also expressed sympathies with the parents of the victim and assured them that PPP government would take every step to provide justice to them.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2018