At least eight people were injured during a sectarian clash at Khipro city’s Shaheed Chowk in the Sanghar district of Sindh on Thursday when mourning processions were being carried out across the country in observance of Hazrat Imam Hussain’s Chehlum, according to police.
Sanghar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Abdi Baloch confirmed the incident to Dawn.com, saying that the clash took place when “activists of a banned religious outfit objected to a procession” — for which a permit was purportedly not obtained — following a Chehlum-related majlis at the city’s Asgharia Imambargah“.
While the SSP maintained that no permit had been issued, the procession’s organisers have not addressed this claim yet.
Without naming the banned religious outfit, the SSP further said its members had also objected to the procession on the basis of claims there was no precedent of such processions being carried out after a majlis.
This led to a clash, the SSP said over the phone, adding that both sides pelted stones at each other and used clubs and sticks to hit members of the other group. Eight people were injured in the incident, including a girl who was a passerby.
However, Dr Farooq from the district health office in Sanghar told Dawn.com that 11 injured people were brought to the taluka hospital in Khipro and nine of them were discharged after first aid. Two were referred to a hospital in Mirpurkhas for treatment of their skull injuries.
SSP Abid said “tensions had been brewing between the two sides, and police had warned them of criminal proceedings in case of violation of the law”, adding that organisers of the procession had also been asked not to take it out.
A first information report (FIR) of the incident would be registered, he said.
An FIR was later registered at Khipro police station under Sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from the discharge of his duty), 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting while armed with a deadly weapon), and 149 (every member of an unlawful assembly guilty of an offence committed in prosecution of a common objective) of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
