Local PML-N leaders booked for assaulting policemen

Police say protesting villagers attacked cops after a missing boy was found dead

RAWALPINDI: Police in Gujar Khan have booked two elected representatives of the ruling party and over a dozen other people for attacking and beating up a police team.

Locals in Jatli town were protesting against the police after a nine-year-old boy went missing and was later found dead in a well. Police said Union Council Adhi Chairman Muhammad Khan Bhatti and Councillor Iftikhar, both from PML-N, led the protest.

Police said the mob attacked a police team after it recovered Mohsin Ali, a grade three student, from a well. The boy had gone missing on March 21.

The police nominated 18 others in the FIR charging them with damaging a police van, beating up policemen, resorting to aerial firing, and kidnapping a constable.

Sub Inspector Karamat Ali of Jatli police lodged a complaint that he along with a police team was shifting the body of Mohsin to hospital when over 100 men led by the UC chairman armed with pistols, axes, and sticks attacked them.

He said Abid, one of the protesters, also resorted to aerial firing. Ali said he was attacked by two men with sticks and a pistol and injured.

The mob also tore off the police uniforms and snatched their cards and the case file, he added.

He said the protesters also kidnapped constable Umar Razzaq, who is still missing.

ASP Gujar Khan Circle Muhammad Ayaz Umrani said the UC chairman had fled the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th,  2016.