KARACHI – An anti-People’s Amn Committee rally organised by Lyari’s Kachchi Rabita Council (KRC) was prevented from reaching Bilawal House by Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza on Sunday, following marathon negotiations and promises of the deployment of a police officer with a “good reputation” in Lyari.
KRC had announced a march and sit-in outside Bilawal House to protest what they claimed were Amn Committee-backed killings of Kachchi youth and extortions in the area. A large number of men, women and children of the Kachchi community had gathered outside the KRC office in Nayabad, Lyari. Many had brought banners with slogans against both the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Amn Committee, claiming that they were abetting terrorist activities in Lyari.
In view of the possible march to Bilawal House, all roads leading up to President Zardari’s residence – including the Mai Kolachi Bypass – were sealed, and a heavy contingent of police and Rangers personnel deployed around Bilawal House. PPP MNA Qadir Pateel, PPP-Karachi President Najmi Alam and MPA Saleem Hingro meanwhile rushed to the KRC office, and began talks with the organisation’s leader Akhtar Turk as well as Permanent Representative of Pakistan in the UN Hussain Haroon, who had come in support of the KRC.
Mirza and Kutchi Abadies Minister Rafiq Engineer later joined in the negotiations. Turk argued that promises made to the KRC in January remained unfulfilled, while the police and the local leadership of the PPP were helpless before the Amn Committee as kidnappings and killings of Kachchi youth continued unabated.
Mirza assured them that action will be taken against the murderers, while those police officers who do not register FIRs and failed to provide protection to citizens will be removed. Following the two-hour-long talks, Mirza told the gathered media that it has been decided that a police officer with a “good reputation” will be deputed in Lyari, and a meeting of representatives of all communities – Baloch, Kachchi, Punjabi and Sindhi – will be held on Monday (today) to resolve all differences.
Replying to a question about the MQM, Mirza said that the alliance between the PPP and MQM would be in the interests of all Sindhis. “There is a group who has starting targeted killings at this time, when President Zardari is in Karachi,” he said. After Mirza’s assurances, those gathered returned home but further decisions are expected at today’s meeting. Mirza cajoles anti-Amn Committee Kachchi rally out of heading to the Bilawal House.
