Fury over police burial without consent

Govt, judiciary, and nationalist leaders clash as court rebukes police in Moro incident

HYDERABAD:

The controversy concerning the burial of a nationalist worker's dead body by police in Noushehro Feroze district has now embroiled the government, the judiciary and the nationalist parties, besides sparking an outrage in the province.

As the Senior Minister Sharjeel Memon spoke at length over the issue at a press conference on Monday, a court in Noushehero Feroze issued a show cause notice to the district's SSP over the burial.

The deceased Irfan Ali Laghari had sustained a fatal gunshot wound during the May 20 clash between the police and the nationalist workers in Moro and died on May 23 in a hospital in Hyderabad. The home minister Lanjar's house was also partially set ablaze on that day in Moro, a rural town of Noushehero Feroze.

Laghari's family, backed by the nationalist parties' leaders, is blaming the police for burying his body in Syed Muhammad Shah graveyard in Moro on May 24 without handing it over to them. The exercise was done amid a considerable police deployment.

This stance has provoked an indignation among the nationalists as well as the legal fraternity, depicting the police action as an unprecedented ruthlessness.

However, the police and the senior minister are refuting this charge. They claimed that they made several attempts to hand the body over to Laghari's family for burial but they refused while putting forward their demands for taking action against the district's police officers, quashing FIRs and releasing arrested persons.

Meanwhile, the Sessions Judge of Noushero Feroze Nadeem Badar Qazi on Monday issued a show cause notice to SSP Bashir Ahmed Brohi stating that the police made a false representation of the court's May 24 order. "... this court never authorised you for burial [of the] dead body without handing it over to the legal heirs," the order reads.

"Your actions appear to be intentional, misleading and in direct contravention of the judicial order dated May 24 passed by this court." The judge stated that the SSP was 'categorically' ordered to hand over the dead body to the legal heirs either through policemen or with the help of some NGO.

"No record has been produced by you to indicate that the legal heirs have refused to accept his dead body from you as well as through NGO." The judge observed that it has come to the court's notice that it is circulating on social media concerning the court for having declared Laghari's body heirless.

"In fact the court has neither declared the dead body as heirless nor allowed you and police to bury the it without consent." Police contend that they buried the body in the light of the court's May 24 order.

Meanwhile, in a joint statement on Monday the leaders of five factions of Jeay Sindh Tehreek described the provincial minister Sharjeel's press conference about Laghari's burial as misleading. They blamed the government for putting Lanjar house on fire to create a cause to start a violent crackdown on the peaceful protesters.