After Regional Police Officer Zaheem Iqbal Sheikh appeared before a fact-finding committee (FFC) investigating lapses that aggravated the incident on Ashura in Rawalpindi, it was District Coordination Officer Sajid Zafar Dall’s turn to record his statement on Friday.
The FCC was constituted by the Punjab government to point out administrative and security lapses by the police and city administrators.
In his statement, Dall said information of the unrest in Raja Bazaar reached him at 2:15pm while he was monitoring the security of the mourning procession. He added that City Police Officer (CPO) Bilal Siddique Kamyana approached him after around 30 minutes following which, he accompanied the latter to the site where the mob had turned violent and was torching the seminary and killing people.
He alleged that part of the mob also attacked and injured him with spears and that all of the three police officers, including the Rawalpindi Operations senior superintendent of police, fled the scene while the CPO made futile efforts to call them back to their positions over the wireless. He said they saved their lives by getting on an ambulance which took them to the Rescue 1122 office.
“An hour and a half later, an SP gave the CPO a call on the wireless telling him that the mob had locked him in a shop. He asked the city’s police chief to come to the scene for his rescue,” the DCO revealed, adding that Kamyana snubbed his subordinate and said his duty was to protect the people, not to get locked up himself.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 23rd, 2013.