ABBOTABAD:
An online FIR was registered against former chief minister Amir Haider Hoti, ANP chief Asfandyar Wali and other officials for allegedly issuing orders to open fire on a peaceful procession in Cantonment Chowk, Abbottabad in 2010.
The shooting led to the deaths of at least seven people and injuries to hundreds of others at the demonstration against changing the erstwhile NWFP to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Tehreek Suba Hazara central convener Advocate Haqeeqi Mushtaq Khan told The Express Tribune police had used delaying tactics to file the report.
Access
Khan said since no FIR had ever been filed against the people who allegedly issued the orders to the police on April 12, 2010, he availed the facility of registering an online FIR, a mechanism introduced by the PTI government.
He named former chief minister Amir Haider Hoti, ANP President Asfandyar Wali Khan, former information minister Mian Iftikhar as well as the then Hazara DIG and commissioner in the reports.
Showing the receipt of the online FIR, dated October 21, 2014 and bearing the number 7046, Khan said he filed the report on behalf of his party as well as those wounded and the legal heirs of those killed that day.
More than just a name
He stressed the demonstrators were peaceful, unarmed and were simply shouting slogans against renaming the province K-P. He said the participants also wanted the creation of a Hazara province. Khan accused the former “ANP government and its Abbottabad-based administrative machinery of oppressing the public”, saying the people of Hazara had long been discriminated against for supporting the Muslim League in the referendum of 1947.
He stated in order to suppress the demand for a separate Hazara province, the provincial government used the state machinery to kill seven protesters and cause injuries to at least 150 others.
Khan claimed when he approached the Abbottabad Cantonment police station, he was told that no online FIR had been received from the Peshawar office and this prompted him to approach Faqeer Muhammad, the official dealing with registration of online cases.
The advocate said after repeated phone calls and visits to the office of the district police officer as well as Deputy Superintendent Legal Hafiz Janas, he was able to confirm the online FIR was received from the Peshawar office. However, there was still no formal case against the named people.
He claimed the police was using delaying tactics as they wilted under pressure from influential figures. Khan vowed to continue his struggle and said he would move the court by seeking action under Section 22-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure and even take to the streets.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2014.
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