Man shot by police in polio vaccine dispute loses leg

On orders of ADC Imran Rajput, policeman had opened fire on Aqeel Ahmed leading to amputation of limb

KARACHI:

In an unfortunate incident, a young man who was recently shot and injured by a police officer during a brawl over polio vaccination in Karachi has lost his leg due to delay in treatment.

On December 15, an anti-polio team went to New Karachi Industrial Area of the metropolis for vaccination and one of the families in the area told the team that their child had been vaccinated two days ago.

The team was also informed that the doctor forbade the child to take any medicine since he was ill.

The victim, Aqeel Ahmed, told The Express Tribune that the team continued to insist to vaccinate their child and during the argument, ADC District Central lost his temper and ordered police officials to arrest him. He said as the policemen moved to arrest him, his mother came for his rescue but she was also manhandled by the officials.

Subsequently, the policemen opened fire on him on the orders of ADC Imran and he suffered bullet injuries in the leg and back.

The victim said he was rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital but doctors referred his case to Jinnah Hospital. The doctors there did not attend him as well and subsequently he was shifted to Civil Hospital in the provincial capital.

“I reached there by around 9:30pm where the doctors started treating me but they said that the veins of my upper leg were frozen due to wastage of time and they made all-out efforts to avoid amputation of my leg but to no avail,” he added.

The very next day after the incident, the police and some other people went to the victim’s home and allegedly threatened that the same thing would happen to one of his brothers if they report the incident.

When the application for the incident was submitted to the New Karachi Industrial Area Police Station, the officials refused to accept the plea, saying that “the consent should be given”.

Later, Aqeel Ahmed’s father Naseem Ahmed submitted the application to SSP District Central through courier service.

The victim’s family has demanded the authorities to take notice of the incident and punish the culprits saying that the incident has ruined the life of the young man whose marriage ceremony was to be held after two months.

Meanwhile, the DC Central office claimed in a statement that during routine polio activities a mob attacked the ADC Imran Rajput and his team and tried to disarm his gunman in UC 10 area of New Karachi.

“During this the gun went off and unfortunately injured a civilian. The shot was fired as a result of the mob attacking the team and not because of polio refusals,” it added.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2021.