Jawans and sepoys laid to rest

Out of 11 FC men deputed at the CID Civil Lines office, six lost their lives in the blast.

KARACHI: The funeral prayers for the Frontier Constabulry and police personnel were held at the Garden Police headquarters on Friday. Family members of the two police personnel, Mirza Wajid Ali Baig and Inspector Abdul Qadir, were in attendance as was the top brass of the force.

Out of eleven FC men deputed at the CID Civil Lines office, six lost their lives and three were injured. Two of them remained safe as they were luckily out of the centre at the time. These personnel belong to the 46th platoon of the force.

According to Muhammad Nehal, the office superintendent of the FC’s provincial headoffice in Karachi, the deceased officers hailed from Peshawar, Tank, Kohat, Hangu and Orakzai Agency. One was a naik and the rest were sepoys.

Naik Sajjad Hussain, son of Syed Ibrahim, originally belonged to the Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had had been promoted from lance naik last month. Meanwhile, Muhammad Azam, Sajjad, Hamid Hussain, Nazirullah and Sarajudin were sepoys.

According to Nehal, there are 45 platoons of the FC comprising 2,000 personnel who play their role in maintaining law and order in the province. “Credit should go our jawans for their resistance against the terrorists,” he said.

Baig, 42, was posted at the CID Civil Lines as a head constable two weeks ago. His 14-year-old son, Fawad Ali Shah, told The Express Tribune that his father left the house on Thursday at 3 pm and was supposed to return home early, because the family had to go shopping for Eid. “After the incident, we started calling his cell phone but it was switched off. We went to the CID office, but no one told us about where he was. We later identified papa at Jinnah hospital by the ring he wore on his left hand.”

The other police officer, 33-year-old Abdul Qadir, was injured but died on the way to hospital. He is survived by his wife and three children. According to his cousin Saleem Memon, he was laid to rest at the Azizababad graveyard.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2010.