SUKKUR: The mutilated and decomposed bodies of three men were dug out from different shallow ‘graves’ after a shepherd led the police to a deserted area near Khanpur Mahar town of Ghotki district where he had spotted some partially buried limbs on Tuesday.

Officials at the Dad Leghari police station said that two of the bodies were beyond recognition while the third one was in a better condition.

They said the bodies seemed to be several days old and badly mutilated by wild animals. The police also collected some spent bullets from the scene and said that there were visible marks of the tyres of a big vehicle.

“It seems clear that the victims were brought in this deserted area by a big vehicle. The killers shot them dead here, buried them in the sandy dunes and drove away,” a member of the police team that dug out the bodies said.

“It is yet to establish as to how old the bodies are,” he added.

Dispute over police jurisdiction

The shepherd, who wished not to be named, spotted the half-buried limbs while passing through the crime scene along with his herd. He alerted residents of village who visited the area — RD-357 section of Raini canal dyke near the Bhagsar locality of Sardar Garh in Sacharo Chak-1 — and then informed officials at the Khanpur Mahar police station about the bodies.

SHO Zulfiqar Mahar, along with a contingent of his subordinates, drove to the spot and inspected the crime scene. However, he did not try to touch anything and, instead, contacted the Yaroo Loond police station to inform them about the crime, telling them that the area fell in their jurisdiction. They then drove away.

A little later, a team of the Yaroo Loond police station then arrived at the crime scene and after surveying the locality it declared that it came under the jurisdiction of the Dad Leghari police station.

The villagers stayed there for more than three hours and finally saw another police team approaching the crime scene. It was from the Dad Laghari police station and accompanied two employees of the local municipality who started digging out the bodies. However, the SHOs of Khanpur Mahar, Yaroo Loond and Dad Leghari kept talking to each other by phone during the course of the digging work, which was stopped half-way when the matter of jurisdiction turned into a dispute.

In the next seven hours, the three police stations kept bickering over the issue. Finally, Mirpur Mathelo DS Arbab Soomro intervened and declared the crime scene part of the jurisdiction of the Yaroo Loond police station. On his order, a police team along with some municipal workers called from Mirpur Mathelo arrived at the scene and retrieved the remains from a thick sand layer.

“The victims were not actually buried in graves, rather the killers simply hid the bodies in shallow ditches and covered them with sand,” said a policeman. The smell from the blood and mass invited wild animals to scavenge on the bodies, he added.

The retrieved remains were taken to the Mirpur Mathelo Civil Hospital for a post-mortem examination. The police and doctors said that one of the victims could still be recognised as his face was almost intact. Scores of villagers kept visiting the hospital till late in the evening but none of them could recognise any of the bodies or their belongings.

Speaking to the media, they said the bodies were found in a deserted area and the shepherd himself passed through it unintentionally.

The police said they were investigating the case with the help of the victims’ belongings and the evidence collected from the crime scene. They said the bullet casings found near the bodies were of a pistol.

Traders protest

Traders staged a demonstration and shouted slogans at the Muqam Road here on Tuesday in protest against slow pace of work and use of substandard material in drainage works.

Protesters, including Haji Abdul Mateen Bandhani, Salman Ahmed, Ellahi Bux and Rashid Ali, told reporters that to lay drainage pipes, substandard material was being used and the pace of work was slow. Road was also damaged at some points which caste negative effect on their trade, they said.

They demanded that the higher authorities concerned should take action for prompt completion of drainage pipe works.

ACE raid

Anti-corruption police led by Circle Officer Shaukat Rind conducted a raid at the Mukhtiarkar office Tangwani in district Jacobabad the other day and arrested Tapedar Meeral Gujrani and seized official record of the past five years.

According to reports, Shaukat Rind told reporters that the accused had changed accounts of farmlands after receiving bribe. After complete scrutiny of the record, stern action would be taken against those found involved in corruption, he said.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2015

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