Traffic came to a halt in Gizri and its surrounding areas once again on Friday as residents continued their protest against the detention of 'innocent' residents.
Several men were picked up by the law enforcers in connection with the attack on senior anti-terror police officer SP Farooq Awan. The protest came to an end when law enforcement agencies brought the detainees to the protest site and released them.
Awan was targeted with a remote-controlled device planted on a vehicle in Defence on September 25. The blast claimed the lives of two passers-by and wounded eight others, including two women and two police personnel. Awan escaped with minor injuries.
As on Wednesday, hundreds of residents from different parts of Gizri, including Bukhsan Village, Chandio Village and Upper Gizri, took to the streets to hold a protest at Punjab Chowrangi, also known as Submarine Chowrangi, claiming that police personnel in plainclothes had raided their homes and whisked away innocent people.
Traffic was in chaos for three hours after the protest began at 11am. The demonstrators set tyres on fire and blocked the flow of vehicles. "I was stuck in traffic and unable to offer Friday prayers on time," said Gizri resident Danish Khan. "Is staging protests the only way to solve problems? Should I stage a protest against what happened here today?"
Around a dozen suspects, mostly young shopkeepers and tea boys, had been detained. They also included a paralysed Matric student who was taken from outside his Gizri residence to an undisclosed location by plainclothes personnel. "They showed me footage in which a paralysed man was parking a Suzuki loaded with the explosives before the bombing," he said, on the condition of anonymity. "They tried to force me to say that it was me but it wasn't."
Three of the detainees have yet to be released, while the others said that they were not tortured during their detention. "The police did not torture us, they only took us and blindfolded us while taking us to another location," said one of the suspects who was released on Friday. "They showed us pictures of terrorists, asking us to identify them but I could not recognise any of them."
While police officials refused to admit that they had taken the suspects into custody, officers of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) were believed to be behind the detention. However, CID official Mazhar Mashwani denied any involvement.
The district police was also unsure which cell of the CID had detained the suspects. "I am not sure but most of the suspects were released after they were found to have no connection with the attack," said Clifton SP Fida Hussain. "Three are still in custody and investigations about them are in process." He said that the protesters had dispersed since the majority of the detainees had been released.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 4th, 2014.
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