Sanghar mob locks ‘couple’ in house, lynches man coming to their rescue

Ghulam Mustafa was attacked by sticks and knives and died before he could get medical attention.

HYDERABAD: Sixty-seven-year-old Ghulam Mustafa Burriro, an elder of the Burriros, was lynched in Tando Adam, Sanghar on Wednesday evening following a clash between two groups.

Three people, including Ghulam Mustafa’s son, were also injured. So far the authorities have managed to arrest eight suspects.

Ghulam Mustafa was attacked with sticks, knives and axes and died before he could get any medical attention. Dr Hafeez Shah, who did Ghulam Mustafa’s postmortem, said that he died of injuries to the neck and spine. His family claims that he was attacked by a mob.

The neighbourhood houses mostly factory workers and labourers.

What happened

Reports reaching here said that the residents of Tando Adam’s Joharabad neighbourhood gathered outside the house of a man named Wali Muhammad Burriro, claiming that “immoral activities were going on there”. They padlocked the gate and called the police saying that a man named Ashfaq Qureshi and a woman, RU, were inside. Wali Muhammad was not present.

When the police got there, ASI Shaukat Ali asked Qureshi and RU to step out. Neighbours allege that while Qureshi was locked inside the house, he called five Burriro men for help. One of the men who arrived was Wali Muhammad’s relative Ghulam Mustafa.

“As soon as the men got there, Ghulam Mustafa, who came with them on a motorcycle, opened fire and injured Iqbal Shaikh,” claimed Iqbal’s brother Yameen. “He [Ghulam Mustafa] was lynched in retaliation for the shooting.”

Mirpurkhas Range DIG Ghulam Mustafa Jamali, who is leading the inquiry ordered by the chief minister, seconded Yameen’s statement and said that the ASI had managed to save RU and Qureshi. “If Ghulam Mustafa had not arrived on the scene and fired at those people, this would have never happened,” he said.

Ghulam Mustafa’s family refutes these claims. “It is not possible for two men on a motorcycle to rescue someone from hundreds of people,” said Ghulam Mustafa’s son, Ghulam Sarwar, who was injured in the attack while talking to The Express Tribune. He was taken to Civil Hospital, Hyderabad.

According to Ghulam Sarwar, he was on his way to a pharmacy with his father when they saw a crowd outside their relative’s [Wali Muhammad] house. They went over to see what was happening. He claims that the ASI was egging the crowd on and stood there silently as the mob attacked his father.

“The neighbours had an objection to the things that went on in that house,” said DIG Jamali. “When they saw Qureshi and RU walking into the house they got very upset.”

The legal matters

Two FIRs were lodged at the B-Section police station. In the first one, which was registered at 5am on Thursday, the complainant, Gul Muhammad Burriro, who is Ghulam Mustafa’s brother, nominated over four dozen people, including Iqbal Shaikh, Yameen Shaikh, Rashid Ali Shaikh, Farhan Shaikh, Muhammad Akbar Shaikh, Andul Hameed Shaikh, Asghar Naee and Anwar Rajput. They were booked under the Criminal Procedure Code sections 302, 324, 147, 149 and the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Iqbal, who is said to be a worker of a political party, is among the eight people the police claimed to have arrested after the incident.

The second FIR was filed by Yameen Shaikh at 3pm on Thursday. It was registered under the same code but under section 324, which deals with attempted murder. Ghulam Muhammad Burriro, Ghulam Sarwar Buriro, Wali Muhammad Buriro, Qureshi and RU were nominated in this FIR.

Burriro’s FIR implicates the policemen for allowing the mob to lynch Ghulam Mustafa but Shaikh’s FIR does not mention what the police did or was doing.

The DIG says that the authorities would investigate why and how Qureshi was involved in the incident.

In his FIR, Shaikh stated that Wali Muhammad’s house was being used for “obscene activities”. He claimed that the neighbours had asked him to stop and had given him countless warnings. He admitted that he was one of the people who had gathered outside the house and padlocked it.

On Thursday, Iqbal, who was injured, managed to escape from Civil hospital. He was nominated in Burriro’s FIR. A doctor told The Express Tribune that Iqbal left “against medical advice”. The policeman deputed outside his room said that Iqbal’s family had informed him that they were taking him to the orthopedic operation theatre.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2012.