Transporters end protest after FIR registered over killings of three drivers

Complainant alleges FWO security guards killed his relatives in an act of unprovoked aggression

KARACHI: Police have registered a case on Thursday against the Frontier Works Organisation's (FWO) security guards for the murder of three drivers near Kathor Mor on Super Highway (M-9). Though the protesters, who had gathered at the site and blocked the highway for traffic, dispersed after the registration of the case, no arrests have been made yet.

According to the FIR, no. 232/19, registered under Sections 302 (murder), 324 (attempt to murder) and 34 (commend intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code, the case was registered on behalf of a transporter, Bashir Ayub Khan, at Memon Goth Police Station.

"I went to Ranipur for a personal matter when I received a phone call informing me about a clash between transporters and toll tax collectors at Toll Plaza, Link Road," the FIR quotes Khan as saying. "I was informed that three of my relatives, Muhammad Rasool, 30, Ayub, 39, and Niaz, 29, had been killed by FWO security guards who had opened straight fire at them," the FIR, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune reads.

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Two others, identified as Syed Wali Shah and Humair Khan, were also injured. When Khan reached the site, he found the road blocked by transporters who were staging a protest against the incident.

The cause

According to a transporter, who spoke to The Express Tribune, on the condition of anonymity, the drivers were protesting the FWO's decision to implement a recent judgment of the Supreme Court with regard to the 'axle load regime' when the crash occurred.

The FIR, however, makes no mention of a protest and accuses the FWO guards of opening fire at the drivers who had been stranded at the toll plaza for the last three days as they were not allowed to proceed due to their vehicles being overweight.

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Negotiations

The protest finally ended after successful negotiations between the authorities and the protesting drivers, after the Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah took notice of the killings. Sindh Minister for Labour and Human Resources Ghulam Murtaza Baloch, who led the government team, told the media that the transporters had ended their protest after successful talks and that an FIR would be registered against the personnel responsible for the killings and they would be brought to justice. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2019.