KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Ali Zaidi along with 150-200 party workers and supporters was booked on the charges of terrorism, rioting, attempt to murder, stealing laptops, criminal intimidation etc at the SITE-A police station on Thursday.

The complainant, Kashif Mobin, the district manager of Peoples Service Centre functioning at the Keamari deputy commissioner’s office, stated in the FIR that the suspects carried out an “armed attack” on the Keamari DC/DRO office while the process of recounting of votes and consolidation of results of the [Jan 15] LG polls was under way.

He said he was present at his office for public dealing when at around 5pm the PTI workers led by Ali Zaidi, Bilal Ghaffar, Attaullah, Saeed Afridi, Shabbir Qureshi, Haider Khalil, Hazrat Khalil, Ismail Khalil, Burhan, Tariq Khan, Meraj, Koman Khan, Qadir Pathan, Idris Afridi, Fayaz Yusufzai, Chaudhry Zubair, Qaiser Awan and Dawa Khan carried out the attack.

According to the FIR, the suspects started beating up the people present there and also opened fire with the intention of murder. Ghafoor Khan, Hayat Panchhi and Lal Khan were wounded, he added.

The PTI workers pelted the offices with heavy stones and while forcibly entering the offices, they damaged furniture, doors, windows and other goods. They also took away laptops and other stuff from the DC office. They escaped after ransacking the DC office, claimed the complainant.

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), 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), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) and 7-ATA (anti-terrorism act of 1997). SITE-A SHO Zulfiqar Ali Bajwa told Dawn that so far, no one had been arrested.

FIR against JI workers

Separately, a female returning officer (RO) on Thursday got an FIR registered against Jamaat-i-Islami workers and supporters for allegedly attacking her car and injuring the driver at the Federal Urdu University on Wednesday.

The RO, Shahana Rizwan, was posted at Safoora TMC, Federal Urdu University, Block-9, Gulshan-i-Iqbal. She claimed that during the recounting of votes, representatives of PPP, JI and PTI were present at the camp office. A large number of JI activists chanting slogans tried to enter the camp office by constantly hitting the gate with sticks which caused a delay in the recounting process, which could be completed at about 9pm. When the PPP candidate was declared winner, the JI workers got enraged as they wanted result of their own wishes, according to contents of FIR.

The complainant said that when she came out from the camp office at 9:40pm, around 300-400 workers of the JI armed with sticks and stones attacked her. However, SHO Aziz Bhatti and other law enforcers helped her to reach her car. The JI workers attacked her car with sticks and stones, resultantly her vehicle sustained substantive damages and her driver was also injured.

SHO Aziz Bhatti and other law enforcers helped her to go outside.

The complainant has nominated 14 workers of the JI namely Ateeq, Faizan, Afzal Dalmia, Jehangir, Tariq, Kashif, Junaid, Huzaifa, Bilal, Kamran, Qutub, Noman, Salman and Manan and other unknown.

The complainant RO said the JI workers attacked her with sticks and ballot boxes with intention to kill her, injured her driver, damaged her car, created hindrances in performance of her official duty, blocked road while resorting to stones and threatened her of dire consequences, therefore, she wanted legal proceedings against the nominated suspects and others.

The Aziz Bhatti police have registered FIR under sections 147, 148, 149, 186, 341, 427, 504 and 506 of the PPC.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2023