KARACHI: Four people were killed — two among them being lynched — and two others suffered injuries in a string of incidents beginning on Sunday night and continuing into Monday, police and hospital officials said.

A few hours later, an inquiry committee comprising senior police officials was constituted to look into both incidents. The body was asked to submit its report in three days.

Police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said three injured people were brought to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) by police after Sunday midnight with injuries from hard and blunt objects to their heads. Two of those allegedly tortured by enraged mobs remained unidentified until the filing of this report.

One of the suspects, aged about 25-30 years and shifted to hospital by the Pakistan Bazaar police, was pronounced dead on arrival, while another body of a man, aged about 20-22 years, was brought by Pirabad police with lethal head injuries. A third suspect, seriously injured and around the same age, was shifted to the Neurosurgery Department of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

Pakistan Bazaar Station House Officer Khan Muhammad Bhatti claimed a family was travelling in a rickshaw around midnight when two armed robbers snatched their mobile phones at Jauhar Chowk in Orangi Town. The family put up resistance and got hold of one suspect, while his accomplice fled. A mob gathered and severely beat up the caught ‘robber’. He was later shifted to the ASH where he died during treatment.

In a similar incident at Qasba Colony in the Pirabad police precincts near an Imambargah, a suspect was tortured and killed by a mob, while another was injured.

West Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Nasir Aftab said mobs tortured and killed two suspected robbers and injured another one in separate incidents in Pirabad and Pakistan Bazaar early on Monday morning. He also claimed arms were also recovered from the killed suspects.

Firing during protest

On Monday evening, relatives of one of the killed and the wounded suspects held a protest at Qasba Colony Interchange, claiming they were innocent.

The DIG claimed a miscreant present during the protest opened fire at the spot, resulting in bullet injuries to three people.

The injured were transported to ASH where doctors pronounced two of them dead, said police surgeon Dr Syed. She said the victims, later identified as Noor Zaman, 76, and Suleman Khan, 17, were brought dead from Pirabad. Zaman suffered a bullet wound in his face, which exited from his head, while the teenager received a bullet injury in his chest. A third man, in his early 20s, had been admitted for treatment of a bullet wound in his chest.

The surgeon said a mob stormed the hospital’s mortuary and was not allowing doctors to examine the bodies. The DIG said contingents of police, led by the West senior superintendent of police (SSP), had reached the spot to control the situation.

Probe committee formed

Meanwhile, Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police Javed Akhtar Odho on Monday night took notice of the killing during the protest in Qasba Colony and constituted an inquiry committee, led by Crime Investigation Agency DIG Karim Khan and comprising West SSP (Investigation) Arif Aslam Rao and Central SSP Maroof Usman.

A police spokesperson said the committee would also look into the alleged lynching of the suspected robber, later identified as Bilal Khan, in Qasba Colony. Mr Odho directed the body to submit its report within three days.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2022