Accidental bullet: PFF member injured during protest outside Karachi Press Club

The protest was against the imposition of Section 144 that does not let the fishermen enter the sea.

KARACHI:

A member of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) was wounded as a bullet accidently hit him during a protest demonstration outside Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Saturday evening.

The PFF members, along with their women and children, were staging a protest against 'the indifferent attitude' of the government authorities when a worker of the Pakistan Peoples Party Minority Wing accidently shot the PFF worker while the former was cleaning his pistol.

Yaqoob Hashim, a worker of the PFF, was injured and was rushed to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for treatment, where doctors said that he was out of danger.

Following the incident, police officials who were already present at the site, apprehended the political worker, Iqrar, and took him to the Artillery Maidan police station. The PPP Minority Wing officials said that they had arrived to hold a press conference at KPC when Iqrar was busy cleaning his pistol in a car. A bullet was fired accidentally, they claimed.

Leaders from both the PFF and the PPMW reached the police station and negotiated with each other. "It was just an accident," said PFF chairperson Muhammad Ali Shah, while talking to The Express Tribune. "We forgive him [Iqrar]."

Police officials said that no case was registered. SHO Ahsan Zulfiqar said that both the parties agreed not to register the case as a compromise was reached. The police also discovered that Iqrar had a licenced pistol and the bullet did not hit Hashim directly. It first hit on the ground then struck the man.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10^th, 2014.