Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Thursday gave a 48-hour deadline to armed gangsters in the troubled Lyari town to surrender their weapons to Rangers, as two alleged criminals were gunned down and two policemen were wounded in continuing violence in the area. Talking to reporters, Malik said the miscreants in Lyari had communicated to the government that they wanted to surrender to the Rangers.
This statement was apparently in response to a telephonic interview of Uzair Baloch, the head of the banned People’s Amn Committee (PAC) and “Lyari’s most wanted” figure, that he would not surrender to the police, but could surrender to Rangers “only on one condition, that they investigate all issues themselves”. Baloch also told the channel that he would contest election from Lyari against Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the upcoming elections. Meanwhile, Malik said, “Some hidden hands are providing modern weapons to the miscreants in Lyari.” He added that if rocket-launchers and grenades would be found from any house, after the surrender of weapons in front of Rangers, it would be set on fire. “Mobile service will be restored in Lyari within 3 hours,” he said, adding that four helicopters equipped with machineguns would be used for surveillance of the area.
The interior minister claimed that Taliban, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Balochistan Liberation Army were involved in creating disturbance in Lyari. “We will not allow Lyari to become Swat or Malakand,” he added. Meanwhile, two alleged gangsters were killed in exchange of firing with security personnel in Layari’s Afshani Gali area late on Wednesday night. No casualty was reported on Thursday, but two policemen were injured in an encounter with gangsters at Cheel Chowk. The exchange of gunfire continued in the Afshani Gali, Cheel Chowk, Singhu Lane and Ath Chowk areas on Thursday, but Sindh IG Mushtaq Shah told reporters that the police hoped to complete the operation today (Friday).