KARACHI, April 15: Speakers at a meeting here on Friday urged the authorities to take stern action against certain influential people, associated with the church, and their cronies in the police department who, according to them, had subjected administrator of an orphanage to inhuman treatment at the institution a few days back.

The meeting was organized at the Holy Trinity Cathedral compound to express solidarity with the administrator and pray for justice with the victim. Bishop Ejaz Enayat and priests Sardar Masih, Emis Daniel, Sardar Dawood, as well as the victim’s husband, Shafique Kanwal, were among the speakers.

They were of the view that DIG Tariq Jameel, DSP Raza Shah and SHO Khalid Rao had helped the culprits in committing the offence by laying a virtual siege of the orphanage, the Brenton Carey Hostel, where the administrator, Ghazala Shafique, had been subjected to brutal treatment. These police officials, they alleged, were now protecting the culprits. Calling for the suspension of the officials, they demanded honest and impartial officials be posted in the area.

They identified the men who had manhandled and stripped the administrators in her office as Zafar Iqbal and George Bhatti who, they claimed, had done this at the behest of Sadiq Daniel and Shazor Shamoon, the latter being a former bureaucrat sacked after being found involved in a shooting incident in Tharparkar where a call girl, Babli, was injured. They regretted that Shazor Shamoon had since managed to get himself reinstated with the help of a political organization.

Pointing out that some other inmates of the hostel had been manhandled along with the administrator, the speakers demanded that the culprits be brought to book and taken to task in accordance with the law. They also called for ensuring safety and security of the administrator and her family, as well as all inmates of the hostel, who were still receiving threats from the culprits.

They contended that the Sadiq Daniel and his cronies’ connivance with police could be established from the fact that after staging a demonstration at the Karachi Press Club, these priests boarded a police vehicle to proceed to the Governor’s House for a meeting with the governor.

The speakers also called for the registration of a case against senior police officials for assigning a pregnant constable, stated to have suffered a miscarriage, an outdoor duty.

They also demanded withdrawal of the ‘false case’ against Ghazala Shafique and the hostel inmates who, they claimed, were facing the music for their refusal to support Sadiq Daniel group and police. Instead, they added, action should be taken against the officials who had resorted to registering the false case.

Meanwhile, the City Council, Karachi, has constituted a nine-member committee to look into the whole affair and submit its report in the next session of the council. The committee comprises Yunus Sohan, Michael Javed, Yusuf M. Gill, Khalid Arshi, Najmi Alam, Irum Riasat, Shamim Wasi, Jafferul Hassan and Tazeem Siddiqui.

The committee has been formed on the request of some councillors who maintained that Sadiq Daniel, Shazor Shamoon, George Bhatti, Zafar Iqbal and others, with the help of police, had attacked the administrator in her office and subjected her to inhuman treatment.