Two of the five foreigners killed in the Kharotabad firing incident were buried in a graveyard near Quetta.-File photo

QUETTA: A tribunal headed by Justice Mohammad Hashim Kakar of the Balochistan High Court submitted on Tuesday its report on the Kharotabad incident of May 17 in which five foreigners, three of them women, were killed by security personnel, but the provincial government has decided not to make it public.

He said the security personnel had acted in self-defence and the foreigners did not have visas to enter Pakistan. They had entered the country illegally and they were terrorists, the official insisted. He said the media could exploit the recommendations and, therefore, these would not be made public.

The report has been sent to the home department. The provincial government had set up the commission on May 20 and asked it to submit its report within a month.

Justice Kakar visited Kharotabad on May 30 and recorded statements of witnesses from May 31 to June 15. The statement of 28 witnesses, including officials of police and the Frontier Corps and journalists, were recorded.

Former city police chief Daud Junejo and Col Faisal Shehzad of the Frontier Corps said in their statements that they had not ordered the security personnel to fire on the foreigners at the Kharotabad post.

Police Surgeon Dr Baqir Shah said all the victims had died of gunshots and they had been hit by 56 bullets.

After giving the statement, the doctor was manhandled by policemen in a restaurant and the government suspended the SHOs of two police stations when BHC Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa took suo motu notice of the incident.

Kharotabad police personnel insulted a cameraman, Jamal Tarakai, and detained him briefly at the police station after he had recorded his statement as a witness who had made a video showing security personnel firing on the foreigners. The Quetta police chief suspended two policemen on his complaint.