HYDERABAD: In what appears to be an attempt to improve Pakistan Peoples Party’s relationship with the powers that be, Asad Kharal, who is said to have close ties with Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal, has surrendered himself to the Hyderabad SSP who handed him to Rangers, it emerged on Thursday evening.

Sources said that Mr Kharal had surrendered himself three days back through the home minister. He was handed over to a senior Rangers officer in the Latifabad area by SSP Irfan Baloch and currently he was in the custody of the paramilitary force.

Mr Kharal’s name surfaced recently when the Rangers got an unexpected reaction from his supporters after the law-enforcers took him into custody on July 12 in Larkana and shifted him to the Civil Lines police station for questioning.

Scores of people led by certain “influential people” reportedly belonging to the ruling PPP created a dramatic situation that led to the release of Mr Kharal. There were reports that these influential people along with local police also mistreated the raiding team.

Later, the paramilitary force also conceded in a statement that “influential aides of the suspect [Kharal] intervened and put hurdles in Rangers’ work”.

The Rangers claimed that Mr Kharal was “wanted in connection with facilitating at least a dozen suspects including the eight criminals who carried head money”.

The issue became a bone of contention between the provincial government and the Rangers.

Recently, the director general of Sindh Rangers, Maj Gen Bilal Akbar, had made it clear that the paramilitary force could go to any part of the province to chase criminals using their special powers.

But only on Tuesday, the Rangers chief’s statement invited the ire of Sindh Chief Minster Qaim Ali Shah who, terming the paramilitary force’s activities in the interior of Sindh unconstitutional, said that the Rangers can only exercise their special raid-and-arrest powers in Karachi division.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2016