Political clash: Cases against two PML-F MNAs, ex-provincial lawmaker registered

More than 500 protesters gather outside Sanghar Press Club against raids

HYDERABAD: Three days after the killing of four persons, including two police constables in Sanghar district, the police started a crackdown on Friday.

The violent clash between the activists of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) occurred on December 15 near Rehmania Chowk. Six persons were injured with gunshots and several others with the stones and sticks.

An FIR nominating Pakistan Muslim League-Functional's (PML-F) two MPAs, Saeed Khan Nizamani and Waryam Fakir, one former MPA who is also a khalifa of Pir Pagara, Ali Ghulam Nizamani, has been registered.

As many as 37 suspects, 17 with their names, have been nominated in the FIR for the killings and violence. The FIR, filed on the police complaint at Sanghar police station, also contains the sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

In their night-long search operation that continued till Friday morning, at least 20 suspects were arrested. Ghulam Qadir Nizmani, a relative of PML-F's ex-MNA Khuda Bux Nizamani, was also among those arrested during the raid.

SSP Dr Farrukh Ali could not be contacted for his version. SHO Agha Shamshad did not disclose the identities of the arrested suspects.

Reaction

Hundreds of women and children took to streets in Sanghar to protest against the police action. They staged a sit-in outside the SSP office and Sanghar Press Club after burying 60-year-old Sardaran Nizamani, who reportedly died of cardiac arrest after the police raid at her house.

"More than a hundred men [of Nizmani Muhalla] have been arrested and hundreds others have left the locality to save themselves from the police action," shouted Nazeeran Khaskheli, one of the 500 or more protesters who gathered outside the press club. "We took the deceased woman on our [women's] shoulders to the graveyard [for burial]."

At a press conference in Hyderabad on Friday, Saeed also accused the police of tyrannising the PML-F supporters and followers of Hurr Jamaat of Pir Pagara. "It's a black day for us. The police have created such a situation that our women are forced to take coffin of the deceased to the graveyard." "We demand that the Sindh High Court or the Supreme Court should form a judicial commission to conduct an inquiry," said Saeed. He termed the incident a conspiracy against his party.

He said that the Nizamanis have good family relations with the PPP leader Fida Hussain Dero, who was apparently target of the armed attack but survived thanks to his bullet proof vehicle. "He visited us for condolence just three days before that incident," he added.

The MPA claimed that the PPP itself is divided in two groups in Sanghar, suggesting that one of the groups could be involved in the alleged conspiracy. He questioned why the police and district administration failed to manage routes of the two rallies even though the PML-F had made a public announcement of their rally in support of the Rangers a day ago. He claimed that thousands of policemen have laid a siege around Nizamani mohalla, alleging that they are harassing thousands of residents of the locality.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2015.