HYDERABAD: A teenage boy died and his cousin and four police constables suffered injuries in disturbances that broke out over an incident of alleged desecration of the Holy Quran in Pinjrapole area late on Wednesday night.

The riots continued into the wee hours of Thursday in which enraged mobs torched a number of motorcycles and smashed windowpanes of a police mobile van.

The trouble started when a rumour about desecration of the holy book by a suspect started making rounds in the area. Soon afterwards, an enraged crowd gathered outside a five-storey building on main Gul Shah Road where the suspect lived. Pages of the Holy Quran were found on main road which were later collected by a shopkeeper, said watchman of the building.

The crowd started raising slogans when Rangers entered the building to take away the suspect. As the mob grew in size Rangers and police reinforcements drawn from 10 police stations were dispatched to the area to bring the situation under control but the crowd went berserk when they saw law-enforcers entering the area.

Police lob teargas shells, fire aerial shots; youth hit by bullet, cousin struck by shell; four policemen also injured; several vehicles torched in hours-long violence

They pelted police mobile vans with stones, burnt a policeman’s motorbike and barricaded all the roads leading to Gau Shala, Phulelli, Cloth Market and Effendi Town. The entire area turned into a battlefield.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad’s senior superintendent of police Amjad Ahmed Shaikh reached the area and tried to calm down the crowd but failed. The crowd insisted on catching hold of the suspect and carry out vigilante justice.

Youth killed

After failure of talks, police resorted to teargas shelling and aerial firing to disperse the crowd. A bullet hit 18-year-old Hasnain in the abdomen and a teargas shell hit his cousin Saeed in the neck, causing injuries. Hasnain died later in a Karachi hospital, according to family sources.

Police said that four law-enforcers identified as SI Koral Khan, constables Mirza Khan, Mohammad Tahir and Mehboob Hussain sustained injuries and were taken to Liaquat University Hospital. They were not wounded by firearms, said Dr Wasim at the hospital’s medico-legal section.

“Hasnain was going to drop his elder sister when he was hit by a bullet,” said the victim’s father, Saleem, who runs a meat shop in the area.

“It appears as if we are living in a war zone. There was massive aerial firing by the police,” he said. The victim was laid to rest on Thursday evening.

Police have registered an FIR (No.124/23) under Section 295-B of PPC on a complaint lodged by sub-inspector Ghulam Hussain Solangi. Another FIR was registered under Sections 353, 324, 506/2-147, 148, 149, 427, 435, 337AI, FI PPC and 6/7 of ATA, nominating Zahid Qureshi, Danish, Umair, Saeed, Shoaib, Ahmed Raza, Khalid, Hamza and Mubashir from among a mob of 400-500.

Solangi stated in the FIR that miscreants opened fire at police to which policemen responded with fire and lobbing of teargas shells. They also tried to wrest away the suspect from police, he said.

Police registered the third FIR under Sections 353, 324, 427, 435, 147, 148, 149 PPC on a citizen’s complaint. He said that his motorcycle and that of constable Abdul Ghani were torched by the mob who also damaged two cars outside Phulelli police station.

However, police did not register a separate FIR on Hasnain’s death.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2023