BADIN: A court on Saturday issued warrants for the arrest of the Badin SSP, DSP and over 20 other policemen after a court official submitted his inquiry report with regard to the Feb 4 raids on the houses of Gopang community members in Luwari Sharif and subsequent violent incidents.

The affected people of the area had alleged that a about 250 police personnel demolished several houses, ransacked many others, terrorised inmates and took away money, valuables and cattle along with a number of youth, children and women on the pretext of a hunt for some wanted criminals.

As police did not take action on their complaint over the next few weeks, one of the community members, Wali Dad Gopang, filed a direct complaint in the sessions court through his counsel Sajjad Ahmed Chandio in May. The First Additional Sessions Judge, Farooq Ahmed Abbasi, appointed Badin Civil Judge Tahir Ahmed Abbasi as the inquiry officer who submitted his report endorsing some of the allegations.

On Friday, the court issued bailable warrants for the arrest of Badin SSP Khalid Mustafa Korai, DSP Abdul Qadir Samoon and 21 other policemen and fixed the hearing for Aug 1.

The complainant had also alleged that his relatives were picked up and implicated in false cases on political grounds.

Issuing the warrants, Judge Abbasi directed the 23 police officials to deposit a surety bond of Rs50,000 for each of the policemen nominated in the direct complaint in order to avoid their arrest.

Mr Chandio along with complainant Mr Gopang held a press conference in Badin press club on Saturday evening. They recalled that during the police raids without search warrants, police had demolished dozens of houses and beat up and injured men, women and children. They said injured people were booked and arrested while the raiding teams took away an estimated Rs1 million from the houses of Gopang community members. An FIR against the police had been lodged, they added.

Mr Chandio said the direct complaint against police was filed as their excesses did not stop. He said in the next hearing, he would name the over 250 policemen, including DSPs, SHOs and other officers, involved in the operation.

Meanwhile, local leadership of the Qaumi Awami Tehreek (QAT) has claimed that most of the affected people were its workers and supporters.

Sanwal Gopang, Advocate Ram Kolhi, Abdul Rasheed Gopang and others told journalists that the Badin SSP had got false FIRs registered against the Sindhiani Tehreek leader Saleha Gopang, her young son and other activists to force them to withdraw the direct complaint filed in the session court.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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