NAWABSHAH: Activists of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz staged a demonstration outside local press club on Sunday demanding arrest of the ‘killers’ of the party’s founder chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi, who died in mysterious circumstances at the age of 54 on April 7, 2012, in Sakrand.

The cause of Qureshi’s death was reported to be cardiac arrest but the party never accepted it and suspected he had been murdered.

Local party leaders Ali Raza Khaskheli, Sarfaraz Memon, Kashif Lakho and others paid homage to their leader and said that Qureshi was eliminated for raising voice for the protection and preservation of Sindh’s natural resources.

They lamented that many years had passed since his ‘murder’ but killers had not been arrested yet. They demanded immediate arrest of the killers.

According to sources in the party, on April 7, 2012, Qureshi was touring different areas in connection with the party’s organisational activities when he suddenly fell unconscious after having dinner with other party workers in Sakrand.

He complained of pain in the chest followed by a bout of cough and was taken to a local hospital, where he passed away at around 2:45 am.

Some party cadre suspected that Qureshi might have been poisoned because he had no history of heart issues. Later, a medical team carried out autopsy on Qureshi’s body at the Chandka Medical College Hospital, Larkana, but its report was kept under the wraps.

Although, a 15-member committee of forensic experts constituted by the Sindh government to investigate the cause of Qureshi’s death did find some amount of organo-phosphate in Qureshi’s viscera, they concluded that it did not prove foul play.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2024