SANGHAR: Police arrested 20 supporters of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) in Sanghar and six in Sinjhoro after raids on their houses early on Friday, leading to abrupt closure of the towns and triggering an angry protest by the detainees’ relatives and activists of the PML-F and the Hur Jamaat.

In Sanghar, police aided by commandos, conducted raids in Nizamani and Khaskheli localities on the city outskirts, bundled the 20 detainees in armoured personnel carriers and took them to an unknown destination. The action followed murder of PPP activists and two constables in the city on Dec 15.

Police later raided the residence of PML-F MPA Waryam Faqir in Sinjhoro town and nabbed six people including the MPA’s personal employees.

The raids triggered angry protests by scores of stick-wielding women, including the elderly and the young, who marched towards to the press where they staged a sit-in against police and the provincial government.

One Shama Nizamani who was leading the protest told journalists that four of her family members, including her husband and brother-in-law who was a known tuberculosis patient, had been picked up.

The protesters said that their relatives were daily wage earners and said the raiding police party which was accompanied by PPP activists scared the families into fleeing for their lives.

A PML-F leader, Kashif Nizamani, demanded while addressing the protesters that police action should be stopped immediately and detainees should be released.

The Nizamani locality including bungalow of Pir Sahab Pagaro had been under virtual siege by APCs since the murder incident, he said and announced a shut-down in Khipro on Saturday in protest against the police action.

The protest was the first of its kind in the conservative city when a large number of enraged women took to the streets and staged a sit-in for six hours. The protesters dispersed peacefully afterwards.

Police have registered an FIR about the Tuesday’s murders on a complaint lodged by Muhammad Urs Malookani, manager of PPP leader Fida Hussain Dero, under Sections 302, 324, 395, 337H2, 427, 120B, 114, 147, 148, 149 PPC, read with 6/7 ATA, against 18 people including two Khalifas of Pir Pagaro, MPA Waryam Faqir Khaskheli and Ali Ghulam Nizamani, MSF Sindh president Waqqar Jat and others.

In Hyderabad, president of the Sanghar taluka chapter of the PML-F Allah Bachayo Nizamani said at a press conference at the press club that about 100 people had been picked up.

He saw a well-planned conspiracy behind the incident aimed at disrupting the city’s peace. Sanghar PPP leadership was using the murder incident as a pretext to harass PML-F voters and workers, he said.

He demanded that Sanghar should be handed over to Rangers as police were trespassing into residents of peaceful citizens and violating sanctity of their homes.

He called for a judicial probe into the Dec 15 incident and appealed to corps commander, director general of Sindh Rangers and Chief Justice of Sindh High Court to ensure the judicial inquiry was held.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2015