Daily Times

KARACHI: Police have registered cases against a senior leader of the Pakistan-e-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Haleem Adil Sheikh, and several others for vandalising a private school and obstructing staff on duty in Ibrahim Hyderi area.

Two separate cases were registered at the Ibrahim Hyderi police station, one with the police themselves as complainants and other on the complaint of the school administration. “PTI’s senior executive vice president Haleem Adil Sheikh and PTI’s local president Jamila Baloch among at least 35 others were nominated in the FIRs,” said Ibrahim Hyderi DSP Irfan Zaman. “We have nominated them for disturbing law and order situation, vandalising the school, rioting, beating a watchman, and intervening in police’s official duty.”

DSP Zaman said that the police were also using CCTV camera footage to identify other suspects, whether they were PTI workers or residents of the area. He added that Haleem Adil Sheikh and others had taken the law into their hands. The DSP said that no arrests had yet been made in the two FIRs, since, the police officials were waiting for instructions from the higher ups.

A private school was vandalised on Friday while a watchman was severely beaten up by a crowd that gathered in Ibrahim Hyderi neighbourhood after a news about a minor girl’s abuse allegedly by the guard spread in the area.

MF Grammar High School, located near Benazir Chowk in Ibrahim Hyderi neighbourhood, was targeted by scores of people. They gathered outside the school and first chanted slogans against the administration and then they broke into the building. The mob locked the staff in the staff-room and went around vandalising the building.

Later, the mob caught a watchman and started beating him up severely. Soon, a police team reached the scene and the law enforcers managed to take custody of the watchman and shifted him to the police station for questioning.

DSP Zaman said that the watchman was no longer in custody as the family of the child had refused to register an FIR against him.

Meanwhile, PTI leader Haleem Adil Sheikh strongly condemned the police for registration of the FIR against him. “The police only registered two cases against me.

I don’t care if the police registers 200 cases against me. Because I am fighting for the protection and the rights of our daughters and sisters,” Sheikh said. “Since last year, the number of cases of sexual harassment and rape with minor children have gone up in Malir.

My party is making the police do their job and take action for the elimination of such incidents.

They should arrest the culprits instead of nominating innocent citizens in forged cases,” he said, adding that the purpose of the case against him was to force him to withdraw support for the rights of the poor people.”

Published in Daily Times, January 14^th 2018.