KARACHI: Scores of protesters from Karachi’s Lyari town on Monday breached barricades and entered the city’s 'red zone', demonstrating against a targeted operation by the Rangers force in the troubled old city area.
Lyariites accuse the paramilitary force of “extra-judicial killings of area residents, including the death of popular local Lyari athlete Saqib ‘Boxer’. The Rangers and police claim ‘Boxer’ was a suspected gangster killed in a joint targeted operation on June 28 in Nayabad area in Lyari, an old city neighbourhood rife with violence and turf-wars between competing mafia groups and extortionists.
Anticipating the protest, authorities had cordoned off sensitive areas of the city on Monday, including the 'red zone' which houses key establishments, including the Governor’s House, the Chief Minister’s House and the Rangers headquarters near I I Chundrigar Road.
However, several protesters managed to breach the barricades at Shaheen Complex, and staged a sit-in protest outside the Rangers headquarters.
According to DawnNews, rally organisers were currently holding negotiations with authorities.
At a press conference two days earlier, Pakistan Peoples Party lawmaker Abdul Qadir Patel had accused Rangers personnel of carrying out extra-judicial killings in Karachi’s troubled neighbourhood of Lyari.
He blamed the paramilitary force for the killing of local Lyari athlete Saqib Baloch alias ‘Boxer’, which he claimed happened during a Rangers operation in Lyari’s Khadda Market on Friday.
Patel had called on Lyariites to hold a protest against the killings outside the Rangers headquarters today.