Urban policing: Six women injured in ‘police firing’

Police have arrested three of them for ‘harbouring a proclaimed offender’

FAISALABAD:

Six women suffered bullet injuries from firing, allegedly, by a police team which raided their house in a Massan police precinct in Jhang district on Saturday night. 

Akram Ali, a resident of Kot Sahib village, told The Express Tribune on Sunday that cops from Massan police station, on the behest of his rivals, raided his house on Saturday night. “The policemen fired indiscriminately without provocation and injured six women of our family.”

The women injured in the firing are: Meraj Bibi, Razia Bibi, Safia Bibi, Hajra Bibi and Naveed Umar Bibi. Ali said that they were preparing to take them to a hospital when more policemen showed up and arrested Meraj Bibi, Razia Bibi and Safia Bibi.

He said the rest were taken to a hospital where doctors treating the women said their condition was serious.



Ali said that he had an old enmity with an influential person in the area. “I am certain that he paid the cops to harass my family,” he said.

When contacted, Massan SHO Rana Mazhar told The Express Tribune that they had received information that a proclaimed offender was staying at their house. “We raided the house to arrest him. However, the residents refused to cooperate.”

Mazhar said that the police fired warning shots in the air but members of Ali’s family shot at them. “They started firing indiscriminately and injured their own women to put pressure on the police.”

He said in the meantime, the proclaimed offender managed to flee. “That is why we took three of their women into custody…they were harbouring a proclaimed offender and helped him flee, the SHO said.

Members of Ali’s family protested against, what they called, police high-handedness and demanded that the chief minister, the IGP, and Faisalabad RPO take notice of the incident and take action against Massan policemen.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2015.