Staff Report
KARACHI: A 16-year-old boy Rafiq Ismail died in violence that broke out at Sikandar Goth Friday where a CDGK team set about demolishing illegal encroachments along the Super Highway.
In addition, two men Manzoor and Maqbool and three girls are suspected dead. The Super Highway was blocked for three hours as a result of the violence in which people from the area attacked the police with stones.
DIG Mushtaq Shah was present there till the filing of this report along with the police from four towns Malir, Gadap, New Karachi and Gulshan.
Twenty policemen were injured badly during a riot. The injured included DSP Gulshan-e-Iqbal whose arm was broken and TPO Gulshan Asif Aijaz whose eye was damaged. TPO Gadap was hit in the head with a bottle and TPO Malir were also injured. The Al-Asif police chowki was also apparently set on fire. Two cameras belonging to the press were damaged and three journalists were also injured with their vehicle. The people of the area attacked the police with stones The car of the general secretary of Mashriq Housing Society Qamar Mumtaz (AAF139) was set on fire also.
PPP leaders claim police brutality at Sikandar Goth: Deputy Opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly Makhdoom Jamiluz Zaman, MPA Sassui Palijo and 25 activists of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were reportedly assaulted by the city police during a visit to the century-old Sikandar Goth near Sohrab Goth Friday, where demolition teams of the city district government and city police have been razing houses for the past two days.
“We will raise this issue on the assembly’s floor. It is a human rights violation by the city district government in collaboration with the city police,” said Zaman while addressing a joint press conference with Palijo at the Karachi Press Club. Zaman said that a large number of villagers and PPP workers were arrested and beaten up by the police that snatched cash from them.
Zaman said that hundreds of houses were being razed by the CDGK without any notice and their residents were being injured during baton charge. He alleged that two children and an elderly man were reported to have died during the demolition. Palijo alleged that major political parties were destroying old neighbourhoods in Karachi while simultaneously holding festivals in the interior of Sindh in a bid to “betray” the people of Sindh. The PPP’s youth wing secretary Mumtaz Jokhio from Hyderabad appeared during the press conference and appeared to have been injured also.