MULTAN: Three recent incidents of fatal armed clashes at public places between gangs of criminals fighting for supremacy have sent shock waves through peace-loving communities in the district.

Officialsourcesinlawenforcing agencies say the gangs do enjoy the backing of some politicallyinfluential people of the ruling party but police reject the impression and claim an operation to disarm the gangsters has been launched.

The clashes which took place in the district during the last two months lef t more than a dozen people dead.

On April 5, gangsters of Niazi and Kashu groups traded indiscriminate fire at Gol Bagh which left Khurram Khan alias Kashu Khan,Azeem Qureshi and Haidar of the two groups injured. As police shifted them to the Nishtar Hospital, some members of the Niazi group stormed the emergency ward and tortured injured Kashu to death with clubs, fists and kicks in f ront of terrified hos-pital staff and patients .

Two FIRs of the incident were lodged with Gulgasht and Cantt police stations. The Gulgasht FIR was lodged on the complaint of Khalid Khan, the father of slain Kashu, who stated that he was going to Gardezi Market along with his son and others on a vehicle. When they reached near Gol Bagh, they were stopped by Sarwar, Hadi Niazi, Haidar and three unidentified persons who opened fire and injured Kashu and Azeem Qureshi.

He said a police team reached the spot after getting information but it did not make any ef fort to arrest the assailants who later killed his son in the Nishtar Hospital.

Another FIR was lodged on thecomplaint of Sub-Inspector Ishtiaq Ahmed with the Cantt police who stated that as he reached the hospital with the injured,GhulamSarwar,Mehboob Sikandar, Bilal, Ubaidullah, Aneesur Rehman, Babar and 15 unidentified persons attacked Kashu Khan with the intention to kill him.

Asif Khan, the brother of Kashu, told Dawn that the police had weakened the case of his brother by lodging two FIRs of an incident on political pressure despite the clear-cut ruling of the Supreme Court to lodge one FIR of a case.

He said that Hadi Niazi, the ringleader of the Niazi group, was a neighbour of Chief Whip ofNational Assembly Malik Amir Dogar and the MNA was using his innuenceinfavourofthe accused.

He said even after the passage of two months, police could not submit challan of the case in the court and just managed the arrest offourofthe accused.

`The MNA is protecting the gang which is involved in illegal occupation of lands, narcotics trafficking, extortion and other crimes while he is also pressing the police not to arrest the remaining accused,including HadiNiazi, Nadeem Qureshi and Rao Arshi, who are issuing threats to us.

Submission of challan in the court is being delayed deliberately to give chance to the accused to manage bail,` he alleged.

He said one of the accused, Ameer Hamza Qazi, was arrested on their identification but police released him after taking bribe.

In another incident on Eid day, 13 people were killed and 15 injured after a clash between two groups in Jalalpur Pirwala. The members of the JaffarKalagroup,includingringleader Jaffar Kala, left a congregation after Eid prayers in a mosque in BastiJaffar,Mauza Durabpur,when the rival group Ghulam Nazik opened fire on them. Both parties exchanged fire which left two people from the Nazik group and 11 from the JaffarKalagroupdead.

Sources say both groups are involved in land disputes and other crimes like robberies.

One of the family members of the Nazik group on the condition of anonymity told this correspondent that a PTI MNA was backing the JaffarKala group.

He said police had not arrested the nominated accused in the FIR but picked up some female members of our family over the pressure of the MNA. `Our young female family members are in police custody while remainingfamily members have been forced to leave the area,` he added.

MNA Rana Qasim Noon said that Kala Jaffar and his familywere his supporters while the Dewan group (his politically opponents) always supported the Nazik group which was a known criminal group.

`Jaffar was a social activist and a noble soul. However he had enmities. I am only supporting his family as injustice has not been done with them,` he said.

Prominent wrestler and Rustam-eMultan Arshad Virk alias Achi Pehlwan waskilledin aclashon June 7.

Achi went to the restaurant of Muhammad Sarwar Dogar located at TB Road after the Dogar group tortured his nephew at Ansari Chowk. Both the parties clashed at the restaurant which left Jaffar Hussain, a tea stall worker, dead.

Achi who was attacked by a large number of members of the Dogar group, sustained buHet and sharp weapon injuries. According to eyewitnesses, Delhi Gate police reached the spot but enraged members of the Dogar group did not allow them to shift injured Achi and two of his accomplices to hospital. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ashraf Achu, the brother of Achi, reached the spot, resorted to areal bring and shifted his brother toNishtar hospital where he died.

Sources said that the Dogar group, commonly known as the Dogar Itehad Group (DIG), had more than 200 members who were involved in various kinds of criminal activities, including land grabbing, extortion and drug dealing.

Police registered the case on the complaint of Muhammad Sarwar who stated that Achu,Achi,Nazar Hussain, Muhammad Shakir, Nasir, Imran alias Mana Pehlwan, Muhammad Younas alias Mithu Pehlwan and 12 unidentified persons came to his restaurant and inquired about his brother-in-law Abdul Ghaffar Dogar, saying that they wanted to teach him (Ghaffar Dogar)a lesson for not selling his rare-breed horse to them.

He alleged that the accused opened fire, killed his worker Jaffar Hussain and injured him, hisbrotherIdrees andZeshan.

His claim was however rejected by Jannat Mai, the mother of Achi, who said her son was unarmed and was attacked when he was leaving the place. She alleged that the Dogar group had itself killed their own worker and injured themselves af ter attacking her son.

`One of my sons has been killed while the other is on the run to avoid arrest as the police are supporting the Dogar group. Achi leftbehind three wives and 11 children who now will look af ter them.

We want justice but police are supporting the Dogar group,` she said.

MNA Dogar said that he had nothing to do with both the case.

`Although Niazis are my neighbours, they never supported me politically and they are supporters of the PML-N. The allegations leveled by the brother of Kashu Khan are baseless,` he said.

City Police Officer Imran Mehmood said that he had himself supervised the investigation into the Kashu murder case and Mr Dogar never asked him to favour the Niazi group.

He said that the family of Kashu Khan had expressed their satisfaction over the investigation process so far. He said all the accused had been arrested except Hadi Niazi and police were conducting raids to arrest him.

He said that MNA Rana Qasim Noon also never asked him to give any favour to the Kala group and the people killed by the Kala group were assailants and law allowed shooting in self-defence.

He said that people had both licensed and unlicensed weapons.

`Now we have launched a campaign to disarm people from Jalalpur Pirwala. We will do so in the city as well.