RAWALPINDI: Fourteen persons were injured, two of them by gun shots, during rioting by mobs and violent clashes with armed police here today [Jan 21]. Police teargassed and lathi charged crowds of students and others at several places. Police said they “fired shots in the air” when a mob set a police truck on fire at Committee Chowk on Shahrah-i-Pehlavi...

One of the persons wounded by bullet shot is a student of the local Government Intermediate College. He was hit in the chest and was stated to be in serious condition in District Headquarters Hospital. Officials said that pistol and gun shots were also heard from the streets near the Committee Chowk on Shahrah-i-Pehlavi which was barricaded at several points by rioters. One Government Transport Service double decker was burnt and two others damaged by the students when they came on to the Shahrah-i- Pehlavi in a procession from the Government Degree College.

In “Urdu Bazar” a mob damaged the city’s main Post Office. Another crowd subjected a police post in Gwalmandi to heavy stoning and a police official said that attempt was made to set it on fire by throwing burning material. — Correspondent

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2019