Probe panel records statements
PHOTO: FILE
The three-member committee formed to investigate the Maari Jalbani incident has recorded statements of the family members of the deceased and the local police in Benazirabad district on Sunday.
Hyderabad Division Commissioner Syed Khalid Haider Shah, DIG Nawabshah Pervez Chandio, and DIG Special Branch Asif Raza met with Mithal Jalbani, Rano Jalbani, and Gul Muhammad Jalbani to record their accounts. Officials from the district police also appeared before the committee to provide their accounts of the incident.
While the committee has yet to visit Maari Jalbani village in Sakrand to inspect the site of the incident, they separately recorded statements of officials of the Counter-Terrorism Department and the Rangers in Hyderabad.
The three members, assigned to conduct the inquiry by the caretaker chief minister, Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar, are expected to submit their report by October 3. However, the affected families, nationalist leaders, and representatives of civil society have expressed a lack of trust in the committee and are demanding a judicial inquiry into the incident.
Four men were killed, and five others injured during an operation jointly conducted by the Rangers and police on September 28 in Maari Jalbani. The law enforcement personnel claimed that the raid was conducted based on a tip-off about the presence of a terrorist. However, villagers allege that the law enforcers resorted to indiscriminate and unprovoked firing.
Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Muhammad Hussain Mehanti on Sunday offered condolences to the bereaved families in Maari Jalbani. "Four innocent lives were lost simply because police and the Rangers wanted to arrest an 80-year-old person," he lamented. Mehanti condemned the killings and argued that there was no justification for taking the lives of innocent and unarmed men. He demanded the formation of a judicial commission and urged punishment for the officials who took the law into their own hands.
Mehanti pointed out that foreigners have been found involved in all the suicide bombings in different cities of Pakistan, and "no native of Sindh was found involved in any such incident." He called on the caretaker government to clarify whether the Rangers are being deployed in Sindh to take action against dacoits infesting the riverine and forest areas or to harm innocent and unarmed people.
Backlash
The legal fraternity in the province boycotted proceedings in the courts of law on Saturday on the call of the Sindh Bar Council to protest against the Maari Jalbani incident.
The protest demonstrations by workers of the nationalist parties were held in almost all districts of Sindh on Saturday. The protesters condemned the killings and demanded judicial inquiry.
Sindh United Party President Syed Zain Shah, Jeay Sindh Mahaz Chairman Riaz Ali Chandio, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz-Arisar's Aslam Khairpuri and Niaz Kalani, Sindh Taraqi Pasand party's Nisar Ahmed Keerio, and many activists have joined the protest camp at Sakrand bypass besides a large number of the locals.
The SUP President Shah said if the authorities had further delayed registration of the FIR, the protests would have engulfed the entire province. According to him, the DC has also issued a letter for the judicial inquiry. He believed that the operation was carried out on the basis of flawed information. "The policemen or officers of the LEAs who planned and executed the operation should be booked and tried in the court of law." He asserted that it is necessary to punish those responsible even though the state always protected the officials of the LEAs from any punishment.
The JSM's Chandio expressed distrust over the caretaker Sindh Chief Minister justice (r) Maqbool Baqar formed a committee and demanded that a judicial inquiry should be conducted. He also called for taking resignation of the Sindh home minister Brig (r) Harris Nawaz. Chandio asked the government to prove that terrorists were present in that village. He observed that the villagers felt compelled to block the highway in protest because the police neither registered their complaint nor issued letters for conducting postmortem of the slain persons.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2023.