PPP-SB plans Sindh-wide protest on 17th over ‘custodial killing’

HYDERABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party-Shaheed Bhutto (PPP-SB) has announced a province-wide protest on Oct 17 against the “extrajudicial” killing of the brother of a senior party activist.

Niaz Khaskheli, the brother of Hyderabad PPP-SB vice president Irshad Khaskheli, was shot dead by the Bhitai Nagar police in what they claimed to be an encounter with three suspects on Jamshoro Road late on Monday night.

Later, the police also claimed that one of the two other suspects who escaped during the clash was Irshad Khaskheli.

On Tuesday, the bereaved family along with PPP-SB activists held a demonstration outside the Hyderabad press club where a brief scuffle took place between them and the policemen posted there.

The party immediately condemned the killing in a statement and supported the bereaved family’s version that Niaz had been picked up by the police on Oct 9 and was killed in a “staged encounter”.

On Wednesday, Sindh PPP-SB information secretary Advocate Piral Majidano, along with Hyderabad city chief Haji Fayyaz Memon and other activists, held a press conference at the club to announce the Oct 17 protest plan.

He urged the Supreme Court to take notice of the incident and order a judicial inquiry into the whole affair.

They accused the Hyderabad SSP of having a reputation of being an “expert in staged encounters”.

They said that the killing of Niaz Khaskheli in such a fashion brought back memories of the era of martial law during which political opponents used to be tortured to death extrajudicially.

The PPP-SB activists insisted that Niaz had been in police custody since Oct 9. “It was on Oct 9 that the Bhitai Nagar SHO called Irshad to the police station and asked him to send his elder brother, Niaz, for interrogation in connection with some cases. Irshad took Niaz along with him to the police station where Niaz was taken into custody,” they told the journalists. Soon after the Monday night incident, an encounter FIR (156/2015) was registered at the same police station against Niaz, Irshad and an unknown person, they said, adding that Irshad and the unknown person were shown as absconders in the FIR.

According to the FIR, the encounter took place when the three suspects riding a motorcycle were signalled to stop at a section of Jamshoro Road during snap checking but they, instead, opened fire on the police party. In the retaliatory fire, Niaz sustained fatal bullet wounds and his two companions fled.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2015

Category: Custodial killing