LARKANA: Unknown armed men opened fire on a group of farmers waiting for food in their field located within Piyaro Magsi village, some 25 kilometres from here, killing two of them on the spot and wounding four others late on Monday evening.

The deceased were identified as Saifullah Khoso and Nadeem Khoso and the wounded men as Tufail Khoso, Shiraz Khoso, Nizam and Karim Bakhsh Brohi. The bodies and wounded persons were taken to the Chandka Medical College Hospital.

Shocked and enraged relatives of the deceased, along with those of the wounded persons, took the bodies to the SSP Chowk to hold a protest demonstration and sit-in in the middle of the main thoroughfare. The protest caused severe disruption in the flow of vehicular traffic.

An FIR of the attack was not registered at the Mirokhan police station till Tuesday evening.

Officers from the Mirokhan and Civil Lines police stations held negotiations with representatives of the protesters including Zulfikar Khoso and Habibullah Khoso to persuade them to clear the road.

They complained to the police officers about the area police’s inaction even after a clue to the culprits and their possible presence in a specified area was provided to them.

The villagers said that local footprint trackers had led the police to an area along Thariri Seem Shakh (irrigation channel) within the limits of the Dhamraho police station. They argued that since the culprits’ footprint disappeared at this place, they must have been present within the area. But the police search team did not bother to make an attempt to locate and nab them, they said.

The aggrieved villagers strongly believed that the assailants were relatives or associates of three outlaws, who were killed in an encounter with police a couple of months back.

The police negotiators assured them of an early arrest of the culprits after which the protesters ended their sit-in and dispersed peacefully.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2022