HYDERABAD: Qasimabad police picked up a relative of Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz leader Riaz Chandio and harassed him before letting him go, according to the party handout issued on Friday.

Riaz’s nephew Hussain Aziz was picked up by plain-clothed personnel late on Thursday night from London Town in Qasimabad when he was sitting at a hotel but let him go after people offered resistance.

One of the men in civvies introduced himself as A.K. Zardari, a sub-inspector at Qasimabad police station, and said that he was performing official duties by detaining Aziz though he freed him over peoples’ reaction, said party sources.

But later on he was picked up at gunpoint near Jamali Para in Qasimabad phase-II by the same group of men when he was returning home.

JSM claimed that he was shoved into a police mobile, intimidated and threatened. Before letting him go, his tormentors gave him a message that he should inform Riaz Chandio to ‘behave’, said the press release.

The JSM, which met here with Riaz Chandio in the chair, said that video footage of the incident had been shared with police authorities, including DIG and SSP Hyderabad.

Riaz said that he was told on Friday by SSP that Zardari was an informer of police and that Riaz could lodge an FIR against him.

He wondered who were those seven men accompanying Zardari and why they had not been arrested yet.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2022