Parking fight: ‘Jamshed Dasti beat me up’

MNA rejects allegations, saying that all he did was to break up a fight between the constable and a rickshaw driver.

MUZAFFARGARH: A Railways Police official on Saturday claimed that he had been beaten up and his uniform torn by Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Jamshed Dasti. The MNA rejected the allegations, saying that all he did was to break up a fight between the constable and a rickshaw driver. Constable Jaffar Farooq said that a rickshaw driver, Ali Raza, had parked his vehicle in front of the railway station’s stairs. Farooq said parking was not allowed at the spot since it had been declared sensitive by the Railways SP. The official said that Raza attacked him when he forbade Raza. He then called up Dasti, said the constable, who started slapping him “as soon as he arrived”. “He [Dasti] said your minister has destroyed the Railways and now you are telling poor people that they can’t even earn a living.” Farooq told of the altercation. He said Dasti had also vowed to take up the matter in the National Assembly. When contacted, Dasti said that he did not know the rickshaw driver. “I was passing by when I saw police officials beating up a man. I only broke up the fight and rescued him,” the member of the National Assembly said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2012.