KARACHI - Police on Saturday booked Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Haleem Adil Sheikh and several others for allegedly vandalising a private school and interfering in official matters in the Ibrahim Hyderi area of the city on Friday.
Two cases were registered at the Ibrahim Hyderi Police Station. One FIR (10/18) was registered on behalf of the state and the other (11/18) on behalf of the school administration. Multiple sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, including 147, 148, 149, 117, 152, 153, 336, 452, 427, 186, 353 and 337 were added in the FIRs.
According to DSP Irfan Zaman, PTI Senior Executive Vice President in Sindh Haleem Adil Sheikh and local leader Jamila Baloch are among 35 people named in the two FIRs. “We have booked them for disturbing the law and order situation, vandalising the school, rioting, beating up a watchman and interfering in the police’s official duty,” he said.
He said that police were looking for footage to identify other suspects whether they were PTI workers or local people because they vandalised the school. He said that Sheikh and others took law into their hands. He said that no arrest had been made yet and police officials were waiting for instructions from senior officers.
It is worth mentioning here that a private school was vandalised on Friday after a watchman was severely beaten up by a crowd in the Ibrahim Hyderi neighbourhood of the city after the news about a minor girl’s molestation spread in the locality.
MF Grammar High School located near Benazir Chowk in the Ibrahim Hyderi neighbourhood was targeted by a crowd on Friday. A score of people gathered outside the school and first chanted slogans against the school administration and then attacked the school. The crowd locked the staff of the school in the staffroom and chanting slogans. They attacked the school and shattered the windows.
The mob also caught a watchman of the school and beat him up severely. The law enforcers, however, took the custody of the watchman and shifted him to the police station for questioning.
The watchman remained in the custody of the police. DSP Zaman said the watchman remained in the custody of the police and no case had been registered against him, adding that the family of the schoolgirl had already refused to register any case.
Sheikh condemned registration of FIR against him. “The police have registered just two cases against me; I don’t care even if they register 200 cases against me because I am fighting for protection and rights of our daughters and sisters,” Sheikh said. “In the last one year, a number of cases of molestation, sexual harassment and rape of children have been reported in the Malir District. My party and I are forcing the police to take action to eliminate such incidents and arrest the culprits, but the police registered cases against me to force me to withdraw my support to poor people,” he added.