THATTA: Karachi police brought more than 200 vagrants, including addicts, mentally challenged persons and people with psychological disorders, in mobile vans to the tiny coastal settlement of Shah Yaqeeq last night and left in a clandestine manner after dumping the men, disheveled and in tatters.

Sources told Dawn on condition of anonymity on Thursday that the police vehicles of Gulberg, Orangi and other police stations were used to transport the group to the town, which was known for the shrine of Shah Yaqeeq after which it was named.

Two members of the group who gave their names as Qasim Ali and Wali Mohammad disclosed that they were either extremely poor, who sold fruit and other items on push carts in different areas of Karachi or were addicts, who were rounded up by police and shoved in vehicles to dump in this remote town.

Some were apparently in a shock and unable to talk but one of them admitted that they had been thrown away in the town because they were mostly addicts and perhaps metropolitan police considered them liabilities.

Sujawal SSP Sayed Imdad Ali Shah took notice of the Karachi police action and directed Chuhar Jamali police to collect the groups, some of whom had already gone missing in nearby villages, and arrange their transportation back to Karachi.

The sources said that Sujawal police had contacted Edhi Home in Karachi and asked it to provide refuge to the displaced addicts but it had not received a positive response so far.

A number of addicts complained to media persons that they were subjected to ruthless torture by police while they were being taken from Karachi to Shah Yaqeeq.

Weeping, some of them requested to help them rejoin their families and children in Karachi as they were brought to the area for no fault of their own.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2021