Cop becomes victim of tribal strife

Tribal rivalry between Mahars and Marfanis claimed lives of two persons, including a policeman sitting at a roadside teashop in Garhi Yaseen in Shikarpur district on Sunday.

A cop and two citizens were also injured in the armed assault carried out allegedly by motorbikes riding men of the Mahar tribe, the police said.

"The policemen were taking tea at the hotel when they were sprayed by bullets during indiscriminate firing," DSP Garhi Yaseen police station Abdul Wahid Buriro. "This act amounts to terrorism."

According to him, the police from five police stations raided the villages and Mahars, rounding up two suspects and seizing five motorbikes and 30 livestock animals. The DSP claimed that the arrested suspects are believed to be the main culprits but further investigation is underway.

He identified the martyred cop as Dad Muhammad Jaffri and the injured as Lakhmir Jaffri. Babal Marfani succumbed to his wounds while he was being shifted to a hospital in Larkana district. Fareed Marfani and a local leader of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Abdul Sattar Brohi, also sustained gunshot wounds. The incident's FIR could not be lodged till Sunday evening.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 21^st, 2023.