Protest erupts against killing of a local in Jhal Magsi district

Imdad was allegedly killed by influential land grabbers

QUETTA:

Hundreds of local residents staged a protest rally while carrying the body of Imdad Joya, a grower killed in Balochistan’s Jhal Magsi district apparently by some influential people.

They gathered outside the Osta Muhammad Police Station and chanted slogans against police as well as district administration, demanding justice.

Members of civil society also staged a separate protest demonstration and demanded justice for the victim in Quetta.

Similarly, Hameeda Hazara and dozens of other social and rights activists gathered outside the Quetta press club and strongly condemned the incident in the Jhal Magsi district of Balochistan.

However, the baton-wielding policemen deployed in Osta Muhammad stopped them from staging a protest demonstration outside the police station and tried to disperse them which led to clashes between the two sides. Imdad Joya’s daughter, Rababa Joya, through a video message widely circulated on social media, has also appealed for justice.

She has demanded of the Balochistan chief minister and IG Police and other institutions to come forward and bring the perpetrators to book.

According to Imdad Ali Joya’s daughter, her family has some land which is in the name of her ancestors, which the influential people of the area wanted to occupy and her father resisted, he was brutally put to death.

“We had demanded the protection of the lands,” she said in the video message. But there was no action on it,” Rubaba lamented.

“What we feared has already happened, the oppressors took away our father from us,” she said in tears.

“We accompanied the body to the city of Osta Muhammad to demand justice for the brutal murder of my father. But police blocked the road and attacked us with sticks.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2023.