Anti-encroachment drive: Women injured in stampede

Firing from party workers created panic which resulted in the injuries.

SUKKUR:

About five to six women suffered injuries when a stampede broke out during an anti-encroachment drive by the municipal committee Jacobabad on Wednesday.

A team of municipal employees led by Jacobabad Deputy Commissioner Fayyaz Jatoi had gone to the busy Shahi Bazaar and Bano Bazaar to remove encroachments ahead of Eid.

A heated argument sparked, however, between the municipal employees and Nadeem Qureshi, a member of Sindh council of Peoples Party (Shaheed Bhutto), when the municipal staff tried to remove encroachments around his shop. The infuriated Qureshi also called his party workers for back up, according to reports.

Party workers came to the scene, opened aerial fire and pulled down shutters of shops, causing panic among buyers, who ran hither and thither, resulting in injuries to women in Bano Bazaar.

Later, party workers went around the city and forced the closure of shops. The protesting workers also staged a sit-in outside the press club and chanted slogans against the municipal workers. Business activities in the city, however, resumed normally afterwards on the request of Ahmed Ali Brohi, the president of the Jacobabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2013.