Katchhi community agrees to withhold protest, sit-in

Mirza meets Katchhi Rabita Committee, PAC denies allegations.

KARACHI:

Members of the Katchhi community planned to stage a sit-in outside Bilawal House to protest the killings of two young Katchhi men but were dissuaded by the home minister on Sunday.

Zulfiqar Mirza met members of the Katchhi Rabita Committee (KRC) in the Lohar Veda Hall in Kalri, Lyari and discussed extortion, kidnappings for ransom and killings in Lyari. The KRC information secretary Ishaq Katchhi blamed members of the Peoples Amn Committee (PAC).

The home minister promised the KRC that their issues “will be resolved” soon.

In February, a core committee was formed to improve relations between the KRC and the PAC. The committee included two PPP-MPAs, Rafiq Engineer and Saleem Hingor, along with two members each from PAC and KRC. The committee was headed by Mirza himself - but it failed to make any impact.

“The killings just went on,” said Akhtar Katchhi, founder of the KRC. However, a new committee has been formed. This one is headed by Pakistan Ambassador to the UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon and MNA Qadir Patel.

Akhtar said the reason they started the KRC was to counter PAC, which is “full of gangsters”. He said that so far the Katchhis have been peaceful but “if pushed we will do what should be done to such people”.

Meanwhile, Zafar Jan, spokesperson for the PAC, refuted all allegations and said that they are trying to make reconciliations and did not want to bring up “old issues”.

He said that the PAC has always been of the view that they should “talk to each other” rather than “about each other”. He said they had nothing to do with the murders of the Katchhi men. “One of them was hit by bullets fired by their own men,” he added.

The blame game between the two organisations has been going on for a while now - along with injuries, mugging and killings on both sides.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2011.