The killing of two Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees during an anti-privatisation protest on Tuesday may remain a mystery, since the medico-legal officers cannot explain what weapon was used to kill them, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Inayat Raza was hit by a bullet in the chest and Saleem in the abdomen when they were protesting against proposed privatisation of the national flag carrier near Jinnah Terminal.
Officials of the paramilitary Rangers and Karachi Police maintain they had ordered their officials not to handle the strikers violently. The Rangers spokesman, in a statement, said that no paramilitary official opened fire at the protesters. DIG East Kamran Fazal, similarly, maintained that not a single bullet was fired by the policemen.
A massive contingent of law enforcers was deployed at the site to prevent protesters from entering the cargo area and moving onto Jinnah Avenue. Television footage showed security personnel fired tear gas shells and used water cannons when the strikers tried to force their way into the cargo area.
Hit by a bullet, Raza was rushed to a private healthcare centre where doctors pronounced him as brought dead, while Saleem succumbed to his gunshot wound while receiving treatment at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).
Medico-Legal Officers (MLOs) at the JPMC said they cannot tell what weapon the bullets had been fired from.
Talking to this scribe, MLOs head at JPMC Dr Kaleem said Raza and Saleem received one bullet each, adding that those bullets pierced their bodies.
“I am a doctor and I can only tell about the type of weapon used in a criminal offence,” Kaleem said, adding, “It is not my duty to ascertain which weapon the bullets had been fired from.
Asked about the angle the bullets had been fired from, the senior MLO said he had no idea. Another JPMC MLO Dr Fazal also failed to answer the same question.
Asked if they preserved photographic evidence during postmortem of the two PIA employees, senior MLO Kaleem said it was not his duty to save such evidences. “We did not preserve any pictorial evidence during the postmortems. We only take pictures of dead bodies to study the mode of crime,” he added.
However Dr Fazal admitted that they missed some formalities while conducting the autopsies due to the pressure of PIA strikers who had reached the hospital to enquire after their colleagues. “They did not cooperate with us, and used abusive language when they were requested to stay out of the postmortem area,” he added.
“The law enforcers had also disappeared at the time, leaving us helpless in the emergency ward of the hospital,” Fazal complained.
When contacted, Rangers spokesman Major Sibtain said the two PIA employees were present in the middle of the mob when they received bullets as shown in the television footage. “No paramilitary personnel were present at the hit point,” he maintained as he said the killers won’t escape; they would be nabbed shortly.
The situation is being mishandled by politicians as well as authorities. PIA in fact should be semi-independent with rigorous efficiency. One cannot put more people on job than needed and that is what PPP Government has done in the past and now the politicians are playing the game to destroy this airline.
PIA in fact must re.shuffle the workforce from top to toe and need to make it stand up on its own feet and must enforce the strict rules and regulation to stop luxurious life of the employees.
Put most able team to investigate who is behind the killing of these two people and then punish the culprits with capital death witout any delay.
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