Attack on Owais Muzaffar: ATC issues arrest warrants for members of Shirazi family

Complainant accuses Shirazis of ordering their gunmen to open fire on PPP’s MPA.


Our Correspondent May 30, 2013
File photo of Owais Muzaffar. PHOTO: THE NEWS TRIBE

HYDERABAD: The Anti-Terrorism Court has issued non-bailable arrest warrants against members of the Shirazi family of Thatta and their supporters. They have been accused of attacking Pakistan Peoples Party’s MPA Owais Muzaffar and his supporters on the day of elections outside the polling station in the PS-85 constituency.

After winning one National Assembly and three Sindh Assembly seats in independent capacity from Thatta, the Shirazis joined Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

The accused include MPA Syed Aijaz Shah Shirazi, his brother Syed Shafqat Shah Shirazi, the runner-up candidate on NA-237 Syed Riaz Shah Shirazi and former taluka Nazim of Ghora Bari Nazeer Kehar. Another 15 people have also been nominated in the FIR, including five with their names and the remaining as unknown. The case was registered on May 12 at the Ghora Bari police station on the complaint of Aftab Pathan, an associate of Muzaffar.

Interestingly, Usman Malkani and Ghulam Qadir Malkani, who were also nominated in the FIR, have been acquitted from the case. The Malkanis had joined the PPP after the elections.



Pathan has complained in the FIR that they were attacked when they reached in a convoy of cars at Moosa Kehar polling station in village Abdullah Kehar. He claims that on the order of Shirazis, their gunmen opened fire on them because of which two of their guards were injured. Muzaffar, however, escaped the attack unhurt.

The Shirazi group won four Sindh Assembly seats and one National Assembly seat from Thatta while the PPP candidates, including Muzaffar, won only one NA and one PS seat. The result of NA-237, won by PPP’s Sadiq Memon, has been withheld after the Supreme Court disqualified Memon for holding dual nationalities.

Two suspects who were arrested from Thatta, Yaqoob Kehar and Asghar Kehar, have been sent to jail on judicial remand. The ATC will hear the case on June 21.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31st, 2013.

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