Show of force: Expressway blocked for hours as residents protest police raids

Police arrest over 100 men in raids in search of suspects behind polio attack.

KARACHI: A large number of residents of Baloch Colony and its surrounding areas held a protest against the police personnel who raided their houses late Tuesday night.

The protesters blocked the Expressway by parking minibuses in the middle of the road at around 7:30am as people made their way to schools and workplaces. Hundreds of cars, buses, school vans, rickshaws and motorcycles were left stranded for hours at one of the major arteries of the city.



The protesters, who included men, women and children, raised slogans against the personnel who raided their houses in the middle of the night and arrested their family members, who they claimed had not done anything wrong. “The personnel broke in our houses at mid-night and arrested the men while they were sleeping,” said an aged woman. “They [police] dragged our men away and did not even allow them [the men arrested] to put on shoes and sweaters,” she screamed hysterically.

With the passage of time, the protest turned violent as the participants started pelting stones at the police who had reached the site to disperse the crowd. In retaliation, the police resorted to aerial firing and tear gas shelling to disperse the mob. Some of the protesters smashed the windscreens of cars.

Meanwhile, scores of people were forced to vacate the public transport vehicles at the Expressway and walk to their destinations. Some of the vehicles remained stranded in the area till 11:30am, while those who found some room took alternative routes. “I was stuck at Baloch colony for over four hours because my rickshaw was stuck between cars. People were hiding themselves besides their vehicles from the stones and tear gas shelling,” said Niaz Ali, a rickshaw driver.

The protest caused a massive traffic jam at the Korangi road and the Expressway. The traffic police diverted the vehicles of the Expressway to alternative routes. “People were cursing at us but we blocked the traffic for their security as the mob could have hurt them,” said a sub-inspector of the traffic police deployed at Qayyumabad.

The protests were in retaliation to the raids conducted by the police in search of the assailants who had targeted the polio teams in Qayumabad’s A Area. Law enforcers had cordoned off the entire locality and conducted an overnight door-to-door search operation.

More than a 100 residents were detained by the police in the operation led by Korangi’s SP Usman Bajwa. Meanwhile, the law enforcers found weapons in the possession of only two of the residents.

Though there were no major breakthroughs in the investigation, police officials claimed that they have at least managed to ascertain how the incident occurred. “Yesterday, no one was ready to inform us about the culprits’ getup or even the total number of assailants,” SP Bajwa told The Express Tribune. “We had no intention to harass anyone. They [detainees] are like our own brothers and children. But it was necessary to take action.”

The officer said at least six armed men on three motorcycles were behind the attack. “One group of armed men attacked the first team. A second group targeted the second team while one team was on the rounds for backup support,” the officer explained.

Investigators believe that the assailants could not have carried out the attack without help from the residents.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2014.