Family vendetta: Fifth brother dies in armed conflict in Hyderabad

The Solangi and Abbassi families have been involved in deadly clashes since January.

HYDERABAD:

A young man, Zulfiqar Solangi, who was injured in an attack which left four of his brothers dead, also succumbed to his wounds on Monday. With this latest death, five of the eight Solangi brothers have fallen prey to a family vendetta with the Abbassi family.

The death sparked a fierce reaction from the Solangi community who blocked the road outside the district’s civil secretariat, Shahbaz Building, for six hours. Due to the building’s central location, the blockade clogged traffic in large parts of the city.

Four brothers including Wali Muhammad Solangi, 32, an employee of Allied Bank, Murtaza Solangi, 30, Asif Solangi, 22, and Bilawal Solangi, 17, were killed on June 7. Zulfiqar and a passerby were also injured in the attack while their father, Haji Usman Solangi, and another brother, Muhammad Ali Solangi, escaped unhurt.

The conflict between the families, both residents of Hussainabad town, erupted when a young boy of the Abbassi family, Ali Abbassi, was killed in a clash in January, earlier this year. The father of the deceased, Murad Abbassi, an employee of the provincial revenue department, had nominated the whole Solangi family in the murder case.



In retaliation, the Solangis claim that their family men were killed while they were going to the court for a bail hearing on June 7. The police have so far arrested only two of the 14 suspects nominated in the FIR registered at the Hussainabad police station by Haji Usman.

The protesters complained that the police were not arresting the suspects, on Monday. “We have informed the police about the hideouts of the suspects several times but they are not arresting them,” Muhammad Ali Solangi told The Express Tribune. He alleged that Murad Abbassi had bribed the police.

According to SP Wasee Hyder, the suspects had escaped from the city as they belonged to areas in upper Sindh. He said that the two arrested suspects, Qurban Abbassi and Aijaz Shaikh, were currently in police custody on physical remand. “The police are extracting information from them about the whereabouts of the suspects,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2013.