Two men including a policeman were killed and another was injured in shootings in the restive town of Gilgit on Saturday.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Ali Sher said two motorcyclists shot dead a policeman, identified as Raja Shah Jamaluddin, and injured another after they were stopped for violating a recently imposed ban on movement of motorcycles. The incident occurred at around 5am near Rax Chowk. Police and other security agencies cordoned off the area but the assailants could not be arrested till the filing of this report. The injured policeman was taken to the District Headquarter Hospital where his condition is stated to be critical.

“This is a sheer act of terrorism which is not acceptable at any cost,” said Sher.

In the second incident, a local, identified as Karamat was fatally wounded in Baseen locality. He was taken to City Hospital Kashrite where he was pronounced dead.

Following the Naran bus carnage in which 19 people, mostly Shias, travelling from Rawalpindi to Gilgit-Baltistan were executed, at least five people have so  far been killed and three others injured in apparent reprisal attacks.

In a high-level law and order meeting held in Gilgit on Friday, government officials had decide against lifting the recently imposed ban on travelling on motorcycles.

Meanwhile, travellers remained stranded in Gilgit as public transport to and from the town remained suspended on the fifth day. An official of a private bus company told The Express Tribune that the bus service is expected to resume tomorrow.

Published in The Express Tribune

The Gilgit city police have claimed to arrest leader of a religious outfit and suspended his informant over his involvement in case of various natures in the city, police sources said. According to source police during a search operation in Soni Koot area arrested religious leader Arshad aman and Muhammad Nawaz, while his informant, Inayat shah, a police official of special branch, was suspended over having links with the leaders. The source said the Leader had been arrested for his involvement in cases of various natures.

Meanwhile the government of Gilgit Baltistan has started pinpointing Ulema and religious activists involved in erupting sectarian violence in the Gilgit city to arrest and send them to Adiala Jail Rawalpindi. According to confidential sources, a few months back in the aftermath of PPP leader Mir Nawaz Khan Advocate’s murder, the government had decided to arrest and send jail those Ulema and religious activists who were involved in erupting sectarian violence and unrest in the city.

They said Chief Minister had also informed peace parlimentary committee of the government action against these miscreants. They however, said on the recommendation of assembly and councel members and returning situation to normalcy, the government reversed the decision. They said the government once again had decided to take action against miscreants following continued firing incidents in which several people were targeted and injured.

They said security agencies were being directed to prepare list of those religious activities disturbing peace to take action against them. The sources further agencies had all record of religious leaders speeches, press releases and pamphlets and they were analyzing them to reveal the nature of Ulema. They said three lists of violent, imitating public and supervising public rallies respectively.

Source (Express Tribune) Gilgit-Baltistan joined the league of the country’s other self-righteous areas after the region’s first-ever blasphemy case was registered against a man who allegedly passed “contemptuous comments against the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh)”.

“A case has been registered under the blasphemy law against Yaqoob, son of Taifur Shah,” Sultan Azam, the superintendent police [SP] told reporters outside the city police station where hundreds of protesters blocked the main road, calling for punishing the alleged accused.

Without being specific, a police official said that the man was not a Christian. Abdur Rauf, a resident of Kondas in Gilgit, had submitted an application with the city police station in the evening saying he was a witness to the crime.

Yaqoob is said to be a resident of Ghizer Valley, which is about 75 kilometres from Gilgit.

SP Azam said that the man had been arrested and police had started an investigation into the case. The incident was reported at about 5.30 pm in Kondodas and the news spread like wildfire.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the police station, calling for the man’s immediate arrest. As the crowd grew larger, shopkeepers closed their shops in anticipation of violence. The crowd, however, dispersed peacefully after police registered a case under the sections 295, 296, 298, 500, 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code (blasphemy law).

Source (Express Tribune) The Gilgit-Baltistan police is creating a database of those involved in various crimes, especially in creating sectarian rift, officials said on Thursday.

“The decision has been taken by top police officials in view of incessant target killings in Gilgit,” said a source in the police department.

He said that the data will be collected under a computerised process and will be used to trace hundreds of blind cases that have piled up over the past two decades. “Once the database is complete, chances are that all old cases will be reinvestigated,” he said.

A senior police official in Gilgit last week informed a court about this step after the court took a suo motu action against the killing of veteran politician Advocate Mir Nawaz. The court had asked the police to explain why it has failed to control crimes in Gilgit and arrest the killers of Mir Nawaz. The police complained of lack of manpower and shortage of modern facilities to counter the threat.

This is first such incident ever reported in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The incident is said to have occurred at about midnight on Thursday when the victim was asleep.

The assailant was later identified as Abdur Rasheed and the victim, his cousin, Muhammad Farid.

According to police, half of Farid’s face and one of his eyes had been affected.

According to hospital sources, Farid was now in a stable condition. A doctor at the Skardu hospital, where Farid is admitted, said that the victim may have been rendered blind. Though police in Skardu remained tight-lipped about the issue, other sources said that Rasheed and his wife had divorced over a domestic dispute and both had remarried.

However, Rasheed now wanted to re-marry his ex-wife but Farid refused to divorce her.

Rasheed and Farid, both in their thirties, had lived in Balakot their whole lives, working as labourers at bus terminals and automobile workshops. They had moved to Skardu last week where they were working as daily wagers in a private goods transporting company.

Farid’s neighbours came to his rescue after they heard his screams. Police said that they had arrested Rasheed and were questioning him.

(Rawalpindi) Some mysterious unknown motorcyclist captured three junior college students of Gilgit-Baltistan and attempted to kill them. Kumail, Ruhulallah and Zahir were passing through the busy commercial market of Satellite Town, when two motorcyclists provoked them to initiate a clash.