SUKKUR: Three flood survivors were injured when police baton charged a mob of protesters outside the Public School Sukkur on Thursday. The flood survivors were protesting against alleged favouritism in the distribution of Watan Cards by Nadra and police officials.
Hundreds gathered outside the Nadra registration centre set up in the public school to give out tokens that enable flood survivors to get their Watan Cards.
According to flood survivors there, most of the people were standing in line but some police officials broke the queue by bringing in other people with them and tried to get them ahead of the line.
The flood survivors protested and the police officials got angry. They started to hit out with their batons, which caused a stampede. Three persons, Jalal Ahmed, Ghulam Abbas and another whose name could not be ascertained, were injured as a result.
After the incident, hundreds of flood survivors gathered outside the school and protested. They shouted slogans against the police and Nadra officials.
They also pelted passing vehicles with stones and blocked the road for over two hours. The rioters also broke the windshields of two police mobiles.
According to the protesters, the police and Nadra officials were issuing tokens to people after receiving a bribe of Rs3,000 to Rs5,000. The protest came to an end after police intervened.
“It has become routine for the flood affectees to accuse the police of corruption,” said DSP City Rizwan Soomro. “We are here to help Nadra so it can carry out its work smoothly but the people do not stand in line and we have to try and manage the crowd.”
The DSP rebuffed allegations of bribes and favouritism in distribution of Watan Cards. “The police is not involved but some Nadra officials are being investigated for corruption,” he said.
Manager operations Nadra Sukkur Shafiq Arain was unavailable for comment.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 1st, 2010.
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