The police killed Shahid Chandia and Akram on March 7 in Mauza Zor, Kot Addu tehsil, claiming that the ‘outlaws’ had opened fire instead of surrendering to them. However, eyewitnesses told Dawn that the police had killed the two men in cold blood.
For this act of “professionalism” and “bravery”, Muzaffargarh DPO Tariq Masood Yasin awarded Rs20,000 to Mehmoodkot SHO Azmatullah Gurmani and his team the same day.
However, when Shahid’s family protested against the “cold-blooded murder”, the Punjab police chief and Muzaffargarh district and sessions judge ordered separate inquiries into the matter.
When contacted, the Muzaffargarh DPO said one month ago when he assumed charge as the DPO the crime rate in Muzaffargarh was rather alarming. The field staff were reluctant to take the criminals to task. Therefore, he motivated them to come hard on criminals.
The DPO said he himself visited the site and found that there had indeed been a “shootout” between police and outlaws. He questioned the logic behind construction of an outhouse by Master Khursheed and his sons “one and a half kilometres” away from their home at an inaccessible place. He also questioned the existence of an intercom facility between Master Khursheed’s home and the outhouse.
He said if someone had doubts in his mind he should visit the site of the ‘encounter’ and meet the locals “who have taken a sigh of relief on the death of two dacoits”.
Labelling the victims as the ‘Master Khursheed Gang’, the Mehmood Kot police claimed that Master Khursheed and another of his sons, Junaid, had also taken part in the ‘shootout’ but they managed to escape while firing at the law-enforcement agents.
Mauza Zor is situated some 2km off the Muzaffargarh-Kot Addu Road not far from the Gujrat village. A retired high school teacher, Master Khursheed is a diabetic and has also developed a tremor. His eyesight is so weak that doctors have advised him to get his eyes operated on.
His late father Maulvi Faqeer Mohammad Khan was also a schoolteacher in pre-partition days. The local girls’ primary school is situated on a two-kanal piece of land donated by Master Khursheed. Besides the deceased, he has five sons and three daughters.
Contrary to DPO’s claim, the single-room Dera is hardly a few acres away from Master Khursheed’s home. The Link Road was only a furlong from the so-called hideout of the ‘Master Khursheed Gang’.
An eyewitness, Husain Jarwar, told this correspondent that at around 6.30am on March 7, he was working in a nearby field that belonged to local landlord Shaukat Khan, when two police vehicles surrounded the area and directed Shahid to come out of the Dera, where he was sleeping along with a labourer Akram.
He said that after a short while, he saw Shahid appear at the door with his hands raised in the air. One of the policemen fired at his legs. His legs bleeding profusely, he fell down while running towards his home. He said some other officials came close to the crying Shahid and opened fire.
One Mohammad Yasin said that he and two others were coming to the fields when they saw police in the area. The officials ordered them to stay away. He said he spotted Shahid lying on the ground and crying for water. When a little girl carrying a glass of water ran towards the injured Shahid, policemen fired in the air and directed her to go back. He said Akram was shot dead while running for life near the girls primary school.
Mohammad Ijaz said that 24-year-old Shahid was sowing sugarcane for the first time and therefore he had hired skilled labourers like him from the adjoining localities. He said Shahid and his labourers had been busy burning sugarcane and extracting seed in front of the Dera till the early hours of March 7. He said the enthusiastic Shahid had prepared the field for the crop for 10 days prior to his killing.
An elder, Mohammad Ali Sandheela, said he had lived in the neighbourhood of Master Khursheed’s family through many generations and did not find them involved in any unlawful activity. He said intercoms and cell phones were a common feature in the area and helped the villagers remain in touch with the outhouses and the loved ones living in the cities.
Master Khursheed’s elder son Azam lives in Dera Ghazi Khan while another, Mohammad Moazzam, is employed in Parco’s Karachi office.
Tracing the history of his woes, Master Khursheed said that since getting premature retirement owing to failing health, he had been trying to prepare his son, Azam, to earn livelihood for the family. Azam had been running from pillar to post in search of a job since graduating in the first division.
He said that to keep Azam busy, he had purchased a loader on instalments from one Nazeer Khitran of Barkhan (Balochistan), who did business in Dera Ghazi Khan. Later, differences cropped up between the two parties over payment of instalments and led Kithran to seek help of an area influential, Ijaz Khar. He said Mr Khar was already annoyed with Master Khursheed, who had refused to give his yellow cab to him. Khar had later forcibly driven away the vehicle along with a tractor, which Mr Khursheed got back through police, but not before earning for himself the wrath of the then Mehmood Kot SHO Azamatullah Gurmani by refusing to strike a deal with Khar.
On Khitran’s complaint, Azmatullah picked up his son Junaid and reportedly produced him before the then Muzaffargarh deputy commissioner to extradite Junaid to Barkhan on charges of vehicle-snatching. However, as there was no official from Balochistan to make the arrest, the DC ordered the release of the handcuffed Junaid.
The SHO kept on pressurizing Master Khursheed and family, who were finally compelled to sign a deed in favour of another locally influential person, Chaudhry Khalid Arain — one of the accused in the PARCO land scam currently undergoing trial in an accountability court. It was decided that the deed would be nullified after payment to Khitran.
When the excesses of area influentials and police made life difficult for the Chandia family, they shifted to Dera Ghazi Khan and took up residence in Bhutta Colony. It so happened that a police official belonging to the Sohrani clan of Mehmood Kot was posted as Dera’s B-Division SHO. He was said to be in good books of Khars of Dasoori. A couple of cases were registered against Master Khursheed and his sons by the B-Division police.
He said his family decided to return to their ancestral village as there was no refuge from “the long hands of police”. He said when they came back to their area last year, Azmatullah was Muzaffargarh city SHO, and he started picking them up in any case registered against unidentified dacoits or robbers. In one such incident in Sept 2002, Shahid had to move the high court to secure his father’s release.
He said alarm bells had been ringing for his family since the re-posting of Azmatullah at Mehmood Kot Police Station on the wish of an MPA who belonged to the Gurmani clan.
Naseem Khatoon, mother of the deceased Shahid, told in a choking voice that she was reciting the Holy Quran when police stormed into her house, dragged around women of the family and took away all the valuables after breaking open the trunks. She urged the government to provide justice to her.
The neighbours, many of whom had witnessed the so-called “encounter”, said they would tell the truth at any forum if the government ensured their safety.
Shahid is survived by a wife, two daughters and a son, and Akram by a wife and a son.