KARACHI – The law enforcement agencies conducted a search operation in different areas of Orangi Town on Tuesday and arrested over 500 people. Around 1,500 personnel of police and Rangers, accompanied by helicopters for aerial surveillance and armoured vehicles, cordoned off Faqir Colony, Farid Colony and Umar Baloch Mohalla in Orangi Town and conducted a house-to-house search operation. After initial investigations, 300 people were released while the remaining suspects were transferred to three different locations for further interrogation.
“There is no definite time limit and the operation will continue until the removal of criminals from the areas,” Rangers’ spokesman Maj Farooq Bilal told reporters. A police official claimed that the suspects were being interrogated and would be released if not found guilty. The operation in the Orangi Town neighborhood came after a week of targeted killings that left more than 40 people dead, including several political activists, in Karachi while Orangi Town was the worst hit during the recent spate of violence.
The residents of Orangi Town were confined inside their houses after announcements in the wee hours of Tuesday were made by the law enforcers.
However, the families of the arrested residents of Umar Baloch Mohalla staged a protest against the law enforcers.
They were of view that the law enforcers have arrested innocent people and spared all those involved in violence in the town. Meanwhile, leaders of different political parties declared the operation a political drama. “The operation is just eyewash to please a coalition partner” said JI Karachi Ameer Mohammad Hussain Mahenti. ANP Sindh president Shahi Syed said the operation was centred around the Pakhtun majority areas only and the party would soon devise a strategy to deal with the situation.
Five gunned down: Five people were shot dead in different parts of the city on Tuesday. A 63-year-old man was shot dead by unidentified men in Jumma Goth, Malir, within the limits of the Alfalah police station. In another incident, a young man was shot dead and two other injured near Disco Bakery in Block 4, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, in the limits of the Mobina Town police station. Twenty three-year-old Hewand Khan was sitting with his friends Ahsan and Talha when two men on motorcycle fired at them.
Separately, 24-year-old Noor Mohammad Jakhrani, a security guard, was gunned down by two unidentified men on a motorcycle near Omar Mosque, Block 18, FB Area, in the jurisdiction of the Gulberg police station. Another man, 35-year-old Shabbir, was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle in Korangi ‘K’ area, within the limits of the Awami Colony police station. The victim was a resident of Qaddafi Town.
