Protesters demand judicial probe into university student’s murder

QUETTA: Leaders of various political parties on Monday staged a protest in Naushki district of Quetta division against brutal killing of a university student, who was running a campaign against drug peddlers, and was shot dead on Friday.

Samiullah Mengal, who was studying for a BS degree in the Zoology Department of the University of Balochistan, was attacked by unidentified men outside his home in the Qaziabad area of the town.

The attackers, who were riding a motorcycle, also injured two other men as they fired gunshots at the student. Samiullah had identified drug peddlers and the locations where narcotics were sold during a public hearing presided over by the Rakhshan Division commissioner around two months ago.

On Monday, All Parties Naushki Zamindar Action Committee took out a rally from the city’s Siddiq-e-Akbar Chowk to Mir Gul Khan Naseer Chowk. The participants chanted slogans against the provincial government and police and demanded that the alleged murderers be immediately arrested.

The leaders who participated in the rally included Khair Bakhsh Baloch, Manzoor Ahmad Mengal, Khursheed Jamaldini, Qasim Farooqui, Ayub Badini, Saeed Baloch, Maulna Zakaria Adil, Hafiz Hussain Ahmad and others.

They said despite passage of three days, Naushki police could not arrest Samiullah’s killers, which puts a question mark over police performance.

They said Samiullah had blown the whistle against drug dealers and tried to secure future of Balochistan’s youth by lodging complaint against the in the public hearing.

The protestors claimed that some policemen were also involved in drug peddling and demanded that the present SHO of the Naushki Police be transferred from the area along with his entire team.

They demanded that a judicial commission be formed under a Balochistan High Court judge to investigate the murder.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2020.