KARACHI: Lawmakers belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf staged a protest sit-in in front of the Chief Minister House on Tuesday against worsening law and order situation in the province.

PTI MPAs also demanded that the government form law and order district coordination committees on an urgent basis.

Wearing black armbands, the lawmakers chanted slogans against poor law and order situation in the province during their protest, which was led by Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Firdous Shamim Naqvi and PTI’s parliamentary party leader Haleem Adil Shaikh.

They ended their sit-in after holding a meeting with Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah in which the two sides agreed on formation of a joint committee comprising PTI leaders Shaikh, Saeed Afridi and Sindh Minister Syed Nasir Shah, Saeed Ghani and CM’s Adviser Murtaza Wahab.

The protest by party MPAs ends peacefully after Sindh govt agrees to form district bodies

They said they all were for peace in the city and in favour of taking culprits to task without any discrimination.

Before announcing end to their protest, both sides held a joint press conference.

Referring to the demand of setting up district coordination committees, the government representatives assured the PTI that if there were no legal hurdles the committees on law and order could be formed.

Earlier, Mr Naqvi told media outside the Sindh Assembly building that innocent citizens were being killed in the province on a daily basis and such incidents were in some way linked to the provincial government.

He said that those talking about Bangladesh were involved in creating lawlessness in the megacity. He said if police officers involved in recent crimes were not removed within a week PTI lawmakers would stage more protest rallies.

Demanding a high-level probe into the Ramsha Wassan murder case, he called for arresting black sheep involved in lawlessness.

However, Mr Shaikh said that a section of people of this province did not want to see the return of ethnic riots.

He said when Irshad Ranjhani was murdered the Sindh CM did not go to offer condolence. He said if Ali Soomro, the man who allegedly attacked PTI MPA Ramzan Ghanchi recently, was arrested people like Rahim Shah, the UC chairman who killed Ranjhani, would have not dared to murder him.

He said that the father, brother and uncle of Ume Arbab Chandio were killed but the government took no action. The CM did not take any action when Ramsha was killed as the accused were related to his party, he said.

He said activists of PTI, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and other parties were being targeted.

He said some citizens were killed in police custody but justice was not provided to their families.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2019