KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf activists on Monday staged a sit-in near Shaheen Complex on their way to Chief Minister House against the alleged ‘custodial killing of a PTI worker’.

While carrying his coffin, PTI activists staged a protest demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club and then marched towards CM House before being “pacified” by the authorities who promised an inquiry into it, said police and party representatives.

A spokesperson for the Karachi chapter of the PTI, Jamal Siddiqi, said that Nazeerullah Mehsud was allegedly taken away by the police from his residence in Kunwari Colony ‘some days ago’. He was allegedly killed in the custody of the Pirabad police late Sunday night, said Mr Siddiqi.

Protesting against the killing, the PTI workers staged a sit-in near Shaheen Complex as the police prevented them from going towards CM House. The police and Karachi commissioner’s representatives held talks with the PTI protesters and promised that the Pirabad SHO would be suspended and an inquiry would be initiated, said the party spokesperson.

The sit-in triggered a traffic jam on major arteries, causing immense sufferings to the commuters.

However, Pirabad SHO Irfan Afridi denied that the police detained Nazeerullah Mehsud. He said the police received a report from the medico-legal section of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital that unidentified persons left him in an unconscious condition at the hospital where he died on Sunday night. The police after fulfilling legal formalities shifted the body to the Edhi morgue, because his relatives could not be traced immediately.

On Monday noon, the brother and an uncle of the victim approached the police seeking a letter to take the body from the morgue.

The Pirabad SHO said that Nazeerullah Mehsud and his friend, Munawar Mehsud, were alleged members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (Khalid alias Sajna group) who had recently joined the PTI.

The officer referring to an initial report by doctors said the death might have been caused by ‘slow poison’.

Man killed in Lyari

The brother of a ring leader in the Uzair Baloch gang was shot dead in Lyari on Monday, police said.

They added Mahar Murad Baloch, 40, was attacked and killed in Photo Lane. The victim was younger brother of Bedo Dada, a commander of the Uzair Baloch group, said Kalakot SHO Safdar Mashwani. He said the police had no criminal record of the deceased and they suspected that he might have been targeted by members of their rival gang.

Two killed in ‘encounters’

A suspected robber, later identified as Hazrat Iqbal, was gunned down in what police described as an encounter in the Kalri area on Monday.

Three suspects were allegedly looting people on Maurirpur Road when a police party reached there. In an ensuing encounter, one of the robbers was killed while his two accomplices fled.

Another suspected robber was killed in an exchange of fire in the Baloch Colony area on Monday night, said police.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2014