Nationalist party leader shot dead in Kotri

Mumtaz Gorar was reportedly gunned down over a personal dispute

HYDERABAD: A leader of the nationalist Sindh United Party (SUP) was shot dead in Kotri, Jamshoro district, on Monday, reportedly over a marital dispute.

Three armed assaulted SUP's Mumtaz Gorar while he was driving his car in Sachal Sarmast Colony.

Eyewitnesses informed the police that one of the suspects stopped the vehicle and fired bullets through the windscreen, while another opened fire from behind Mumtaz's car. They claimed that the assailants were shouting that they were killing Mumtaz due to personal enmity.

The body was shifted to Bilawal Medical College Hospital, where a large number of SUP workers and supporters, including party president Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, had gathered. According to Dr Haleem Channa, who conducted the postmortem, Mumtaz had sustained three gunshot wounds.

"My son left home in the morning to go to the market but he was stopped near our home and killed," Muhib Ali Gorar, the father of the deceased, told the media. He named their community's tribal chief, Ghulam Dastgir Gorar, along with Mujahid Gorar, Bahadur Gorar, Hakim Ali Gorar, Nooruddin Gorar and Bakht Gorar, as being involved in the murder. "They had been threatening us for some days," he added.

According to Muhib, the SUP chief had spoken to Ghulam in order to resolve the dispute and a meeting had tentatively been scheduled. However, Mumtaz was killed before the meeting could take place.

"Mumtaz was a brave worker who attained the rank of one of the party's leaders after a long media struggle," said Shah.

Jamshoro SSP Amjad Shaikh stated that a police team, headed by DSP Nazar Deeshak, had been formed to arrest the assailants. Meanwhile, Deeshak claimed that police had arrested two of the suspected assailants in separate raids.

Mumtaz's younger brother, Abbass Gorar, had married a woman from the suspects' family without her family's approval. The woman's uncle had registered an FIR under charges of kidnapping seven months ago, implicating the deceased, Muhib and Abbass in the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2020.