Karachi Police have registered a case against PTI Sindh President Ali Haider Zaidi and 17 other party workers under terrorism and other charges after rival political activists clashed outside the Keamari deputy commissioner’s (DC) yesterday evening, it emerged on Thursday.

The clashes followed Sunday’s local government elections, the contentious results of which were called into question by the PTI and Jamaat-i-Islami, whose workers took to the streets yesterday.

The second phase of the local government elections was held in 16 districts of Sindh on Sunday.

However, major contesting parties — including the ruling PPP — had raised concerns over an unusual delay in the results in Karachi and blamed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for mismanagement.

PTI and PPP workers had clashed outside the Keamari DC office on Wednesday evening, where the PTI accused the PPP of attacking its workers while the Keamari DC maintained that PTI workers forcibly entered the office and harassed staff.

Site-A police registered the first information report (FIR), a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, at 7:20pm yesterday on a complaint of Kashif Mobin, the district manager of the People’s Service Centre at the Keamari DC office.

The FIR has been registered under Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-terrorism Act, 2017 along with Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 324 (attempt to commit qatl-i-amd), 506-b (punishment for criminal intimidation), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees), 380 (theft in dwelling house, etc), and 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) 1860.

However, according to Site-A Station House Officer Zulfiqar Ali Bajwa, no one has been arrested so far.

According to Mobin, he was present at the Keamari DC office on his duty when at around 5pm, some 150-200 PTI workers — led by Zaidi and 17 other leaders — “attacked the DC office while chanting slogans and armed with weapons, canes, and sticks”.

The complainant claimed the attackers started beating up people and “firing shots with the intention to kill” them, spreading fear among the people that led to at least three people being injured.

The FIR also mentioned that the workers pelted stones at the office and destroyed the furniture, windows, and doors there. It further alleged the rioters stole various valuable items from the office, including laptops.

Following the registration of the initial FIR, Ziadi shared a copy of it in the early hours of Thursday, lamenting “attack on us […] and they cut FIRs on us!”.

RO files FIR against JI workers

Separately, Aziz Bhatti police filed an FIR late Wednesday night against 14 named Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) workers and unidentified others on the complaint of RO Shahana Rizwan, who alleged that some 300-400 JI workers attacked her car hours earlier.

The FIR has been registered under Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the PPC 1860.

According to Rizwan, she was leaving the camp office at 9:40pm yesterday after the recounting of votes had been completed when JI workers attacked her with the “common intention” to allegedly kill her, following which the Aziz Bhatti police station SHO and other policemen helped her get into her car.

The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, states the party workers then hit Rizwan’s car “with ballot boxes and stones”, causing significant damage to her car and injuring her driver.

She added that even though the representatives of all three parties — PPP, PTI and JI — were present inside the camp office during the votes’ recounting, JI workers had been chanting slogans outside the Federal Urdu University’s gate and attempting to enter inside, causing a delay in the completion of the recounting process.

Saeed Ghani addresses ‘hooliganism’ by PTI, JI

Meanwhile, PPP Karachi President and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani said action must be taken against the “terrorism” done by the “PTI goons”, referring to the Keamari clashes.

Addressing the clashes that took place between PPP and JI workers last night, Ghani said that the JI should reach out to the legal forums if they have a complaint instead of “doing hooliganism on the streets”.

Referring to the incident of the alleged attack on the female RO, he reiterated that the incident left Rizwan’s driver injured along with two police officers who came to protect her.

The PPP leader added the RO was “being threatened by JI workers that we won’t leave you and will harm you after coming to your house”.

Ghani castigated the JI city chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, “If he is presenting himself as a candidate for the mayor — whether he becomes the mayor with PTI’s support or PPP’s — […] the behaviour of Karachi’s mayor shouldn’t be like Hafiz sahab’s is [currently].

The minister asserted, “FIR was also registered against the Jamaat-i-Islami workers who did this (violence), and if somewhere else, People’s Party workers do so, there will be an FIR [filed] against them as well.”

PTI vs PPP

Keamari DC Mukhtiar Abro, who is also the district RO, had alleged that PTI workers threw stones and broke the windows of several vehicles.

“The PTI workers ransacked the computer and harassed staff including female returning officers who were busy performing their electoral duty,” he had said.

PPP Senator Waqar Mehdi said that electoral staff were busy compiling and consolidating the results of the LG polls when the PTI workers — led by Zaidi, Bilal Ghaffar and others — “resorted to hooliganism and attacked PPP workers who were also present there”.

Zaidi, on the other hand, alleged that he had gone to meet his candidates and talk to the press when PPP “goons prepared with stones and under full protection of Sindh police attacked” them.