NAWABSHAH, March 24: Dozens of villagers from the Safan Patan village of Daulatpur taluka held a demonstration outside the press club on Saturday against influential landlords of the area and police.

Ali Sher Mallah and Gul Hassan Mallah accompanied by Ismail Dahiri, personal secretary to the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) leader Asif Ali Zardari, told journalists that some armed Dahiri tribesmen, including Rano, and Anwar, who were related to a former minister and a former MPA, opened fire on a boat full of passengers when the boatman refused to bring it back to take them on.

They said that on Thursday the Dahiris had asked the boatman Ameer Bux Mallah, who had already sailed away from the river’s bank, to sail back to the bank, offload the passengers and then take them across the river.

When the boatman told them to wait there till he returned the armed men opened fire upon the boat seriously injuring a passenger Wahid Bux Shaikh while Waseem, 12, son of Ameer Bux, jumped into the river and had been missing since then.

They said that police refused to register a case when they went to them and were forced to file a case against seven Dahiris after they held a protest demonstration and blocked the National Highway. But instead of arresting the culprits the police booked more than 80 people belonging to the aggrieved party on charges of blocking the highway, they said.

The TPO and the SHO of Daulatpur along with a heavy contingent of police raided their village on Saturday morning, beaten them and their families, snatched cash and other valuable belongings including motorcycles besides arresting nine people including Ameer Bux, the boatman, they said.

They appealed to the higher authorities to order release of innocent people and arrest of culprits involved in the firing incident and demanded immediate suspension of the TPO and the SHO.

PPP MPA Ghulam Qadir Chandio who also joined the protest later on told journalists that the Mallah tribesmen were being subjected to persecution because they were PPP supporters.