Man arrested after holding family ‘hostage’ for hours

Sharing his terms for surrender, he said he will only negotiate with the Russian ambassador

HYDERABAD: It has yet to be ascertained if it was a hostage situation or a bid to keep oneself under lock and key. A melodrama involving an 'emotionally challenged' man and his family panned out in an apartment in Hyderabad on Friday and continued for a good 40 hours.

The scene, which began around 12:30am on Friday, culminated on Saturday after continuing for a good 40 hours with the arrest of the protagonist Dr Ibrahim Almani.



Neighbours accused the suspect of shooting a young man late Thursday night and, subsequently, keeping his own mother, daughter and son hostages. He also allegedly resorted to aerial firing from his flat located on the first floor of Sana Centre, a residential four-storey building in Qasimabad.

"I am not mentally sick but the unending injustices [in life] have made me react this way," bemoaned Almani, while talking to the media on Saturday, standing ensconced behind the iron grills of his flat's main door. "I will negotiate only with the Russian ambassador," he shouted when prompted by the media and Ayaz Palijo, Qaumi Awami Tehreek's leader, to share his terms for releasing his family and his surrender.

After these several rounds of negotiations failed, the police broke the gate's padlock, entered the flat, overpowered the suspect and took him into their custody. On Sunday, the Qasimabad police, who lodged an attempt to murder FIR on the complaint of the injured person's relative, produced him before a magistrate, who granted his two-day physical remand.

The Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) centre's incharge, Aslam Langha, claimed that the police recovered a pistol from his possession during the arrest.



"I say that I am a captive of the state. They have captured me. I have kept submitting myself to all the concerned forums of the society and to the police but no one was responding to me," a grim-faced yet assertive Almani, who claims to have never practised medicine after graduating from Dow Medical University, Karachi, in 1997, bewailed while talking to the media.

The suspect accused two persons, Azeem Almani and Dr Anwar Almani, of having occupied his family's agricultural land in rural Hyderabad. "I have been saying that I am reporting this matter and trying to talk about it for three years," he said. "I have approached you journalists [and] written letters to the press club." Family sources, however, claimed that the land has been given on contract with consent.

According to Amar Jaleel Bhutto, who lives on the building's second floor, the drama began past Thursday midnight. Almani allegedly opened fire on three young men, one of whom lived on the same floor, who were chattering in the corridor outside his flat. The bullet hit a wall and then touched past Hasnain Solangi, leaving him injured.



However, Almani maintained that he was provoked into taking recourse to firing because the young men did not move away from the corridor when he requested them. According to Bhutto, Almani has been living here for around eight years. "But he never socialised with [the] inhabitants [of the building] or even replied to anyone's salam [greetings]," Bhutto told The Express Tribune.

"After this incident, Almani locked himself with his family inside the flat, trying to avoid arrest [by the police] or vengeance [by the neighbours]," DSP Qasimabad Sikandar Bhatti, who talked to Almani for hours that night to give up, told The Express Tribune.



The rest of the day on Friday passed peacefully as the police awaited the medical report to register an FIR. However, things again took a turn for worst Saturday morning when the building's union convened a meeting to decide a move to expel Almani. "We met today around noon and will meet again tomorrow to decide what to do with Almani sahib," Waseem Patoli, the union leader of the building, which consists of 29 flats, told The Express Tribune. Dr Almani married in 2006 but the couple split after a few years. His daughter Hafsa, son Hassan and mother Khadija lived with him in the flat. He, along with his two sisters, also owns 50 to 60 acres of agricultural land in rural Hyderabad.

Dr Raheela Sikandar, his sister whose clinic is located in a shop under the same building, clarified that her brother has not taken the family hostage. She complained that the neighbours have been creating problems for her brother. "The boys were creating disturbance," she told the media. "He had requested them to move away [from the corridor] but they didn't heed to his requests, provoking him to react in an extreme way."

Family sources further claimed that Almani has at least twice been referred to psychologists for treatment of mental disorders.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2016.