THATTA: Family members and other relatives of a labourer took out a procession along with dozens of political, nationalist and civil society activists here on Monday accusing police of having murdered him in custody.

The labourer, Sadruddin Walhari, was shot dead in what the Gharo police had claimed an “encounter that also left two policemen dead” a couple of months back.

The protesters, who started their four-kilometre march from Makli, held a sit-in outside the Thatta Press Club.

Displaying placards inscribed with slogans for justice and against police, they kept raising slogans against Gharo SHO Mumtaz Brohi and his subordinates’ team all along the route of their march. They demanded a fair investigation into the “custodial killing” of Walhari.

Speaking to them, Daadli Walhari, wife of the deceased, Shareefa Walhari, Dr Nusrat Palijo and others condemned the area police over the alleged custodial killing.

“The police team not only killed Sadruddin Walhari in cold blood but also celebrated the murder by waving official arms while their mobile van carrying the body passed by a crowd of local residents who had gathered at the site of the fake encounter,” Daadli Walhari told media personnel outside the press club.

She said she and her family members had been frequenting the police station and offices of higher police officers ever since the incident but were not being obliged to lodge an FIR.

Dr Nusrat Palijo said that deceased Walhari was a labourer and had gone missing after SHO Brohi and his team picked him up.

“It was after an uproar in the social media over his disappearance that the police team brought the body to the farmhouse where, according to the police, two policemen were killed in a shootout with dacoits,” she said.

The protesters claimed that the SHO waving his official weapon in one hand and showing the victory sign with the other took his team for a ride by the van that carried Walhari’s body. The van took rounds of different localities of Makli and Thatta, they added.

It is pertinent to mention here that the official police version of the incident claimed that the Gharo police raided a farmhouse in Makli to arrest some dacoits.

An encounter with those present inside the farmhouse ensued in which one dacoit and two constables were killed.

The dead dacoit was later identified as Sadruddin Walhari, the police had claimed.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2021