Kharotabad shooting: Parliamentary panel to visit the site

NA human rights panel to send fact-finding mission to inspect site.

ISLAMABAD:

National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights has termed the Kharotabad shooting incident a serious human rights violation and will send a parliamentary fact-finding mission to inspect the site.

The decision came at a committee meeting on Wednesday. Findings of the mission, headed by Adviser to the Prime Minister Mustafa Khokar, will be discussed in a committee meeting next week.

Five foreigners, including three women, initially believed to be Chechens on a suicide bombing mission, were shot dead by police and Frontier Constabulary (FC) troops on May 17 in Quetta.

Committee Chairperson Riaz Fatiyana rejected the Quetta police’s preliminary report. “Police and FC personnel opened fire on the unarmed foreigners as brutally as though they are licensed to kill,” he said.

Fatiyana directed the Quetta DIG and incumbent and former district police officers to appear before the committee in the next meeting, to be held on June 24.

FC Quetta sector commander Brigadier Abdul Rasheed, who was present in the meeting, said that a commission, headed by a high court judge, had already been formed to investigate the matter. “It will be appropriate to wait for the findings of that commission,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9th, 2011.