RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: An MPA belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf charged during Thursday’s assembly session that the recent killing of a youth in Karachi resulted from a fake police encounter, describing the death as judicial murder.

On a call-attention notice, Khurram Sher Zaman Khan said that the SSP of Malir, Rao Anwar, whom he called an “encounter specialist,” killed Naqeeb Ullah Mehsud after police plainclothesmen had earlier picked up him from his home. He demanded that the Sindh government suspend Rao Anwar until a probe into the death is concluded.

Deputy speaker Shehla Raza of the PPP responded that a probe into the killing is already underway. The Sindh home minister was absent from the session.

The MQM’s Muhammad Dilawar Qureshi spoke against the Sindh government’s move to evacuate three localities on the banks of three large canals, saying they were in existence for a number of decades so their evacuation would be an injustice.

Earlier, Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro told the house during question hour that anti-snake venom is available and an anti-rabies serology lab is functional in district Nawabshah that produces vaccines for such deadly disease.

Nearly 50 dog bites victims have been treated at different hospitals. He informed the house that 11 people died of dengue in 2016-17 while the government has allocated four beds in each of its hospitals for treating dengue victims exclusively across the province. He said that the government has made all arrangements to fight influenza. The house adopted a resolution unanimously to condemn the rape and murder of four-year-old Asma in Mardan.

A resolution, which the PPP’s Saira Shahliani and the MQM’s Heer Ismail Soho had tabled, demanded that the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa government to do trace and punish those responsible of the crime.

A hush fell when the MQM’s Abdul Rauf Siddique burst into tears over the tragedy.

Dr Sikandar Mandhro said that the existing laws for perpetrators of such crimes are insufficient for their crimes.