|
Sunni Tehreek worker killed in shootout
 The incident at the slain ST leader’s house sparked violence in different parts of the city where agitating workers set buses on fire and resorted to heavy gunfire. - Online photo
KARACHI: A worker of the Sunni Tehreek was killed and another wounded on Wednesday during a shootout with the police in front of the rented house of the party’s slain chief, Abbas Qadri, in PECHS, witnesses and police said.
The Ferozeabad police said the police had gone with a bailiff for the compliance of court orders for the eviction of the tenants and the ST workers opened fire on the police party to prevent eviction.
However, ST spokesman Fahimuddin Shaikh said the police opened fire on the party workers who had thronged Abbas Qadri’s residence and staged a protest demonstration after a police party ‘misbehaved with the widow and children’ of the slain leader.
The incident at the slain ST leader’s house sparked violence in different parts of the city where agitating workers set two buses on fire. Parts of Lines Area, Shah Faisal Colony and North Karachi also echoed with heavy gunfire.
Jamshed Town SP Javed Akbar Riaz told Dawn that the bailiff, Mohammed Rahimu, approached the police with an eviction order and sought police assistance for the compliance of the court order. ‘The ST workers first pelted the police party with stones and then opened heavy fire as they reached in front of the house (D-40) in Block-2 at around 4.30pm,’ he added.
The SP said that between 70 and 75 ST workers took positions on the rooftop of the house and opened heavy fire on the police party, who retreated and later fired teargas shells to disperse the ST workers.
He said two ST workers were shot and wounded, one of them fatally, in the firing by the ST workers.
He said that a case (FIR 748/2009) was registered against ST workers under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of a common object), 302 (murder), 324 (attempted murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the court bailiff.
The ST spokesman, however, said the police resorted to heavy fire on the protesting ST workers on the instruction of Riazuddin, an additional home secretary, Sindh, the son of the landlady.
He said Mr Qadri’s family had been living in the house for the past nine years. He said that a deal had been struck with Riazuddin for the purchase of the house for Rs4 million six years back.
He said Riazuddin threatened the late Mr Qadri’s family of dire consequences two months back in case they did not vacate the house.
The spokesman said the ST central leader, Mohammed Shahid Ghauri, and members of the Rabita Committee, Mubin Qadri and Aftab Qadri, immediately reached the house of the slain leader and calmed the workers down.
The body and the wounded were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where the killed worker was identified as Wasim Qadri, a resident of Shah Faisal Colony, and the wounded worker as Abdur Rahman of New Karachi.
DAWN: Thursday, 02 Jul, 2009
|
