Islamabad [Pakistan], July 24 : A total of 170 people were booked on Sunday for invading Narch village in Sindh’s Narch, dominated by Kalhoro tribesmen, resulting in a double murder, Dawn reported.
Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper.
The invaders who were riding motorcycles, stormed into the village and resorted to indiscriminate firing on several houses purportedly to avenge the alleged kidnapping of a woman belonging to the Mahar community.
As a result of the attack, two youths were killed, and several other people were wounded. The invaders also took away two women and a girl with them and held them, hostage, for hours. In subsequent police raids in Raza Goth, situated in the riverine area, the hostages were recovered from a hideout.
On a complaint lodged by a nephew of Ghulam Murtaza Kalhoro, one of the deceased victims, the Sangi police, registered the FIR against 34 nominated and 140 unknown suspects under murder, terrorism, kidnapping and other charges.
The complainant said that the attackers had also threatened the bereaved family and other community members with dire consequences.
Sources in the two villages said that the violent reaction from the Mahars living in Raza Goth was linked to the disappearance of a woman belonging to their community.
The Mahars believed that she had been abducted by a youth belonging to the Kalhoro family to contract a freewill marriage. Some residents of Narch village, however, claimed that the woman had left her family for a freewill marriage, as per Dawn.
The Sangi police on Sunday evening said they had detained eight of the suspects involved in the village invasion. Sukkur SSP Sanghar Malik told the media that a hunt for other nominated and unknown suspects was underway.
He said that the Kalhoro man and Mahar woman at the centre of the whole episode remained untraced. “Their mobile phones are found switched off,” he added.
He said police would ensure their safety and security if it was really a matter of freewill marriage, according to Dawn.
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