Four killed in Islamabad and Karachi police encounters within 12 hours
Minute Mirror reports two Afghan nationals among the dead in the capital and eight injured and arrested in Karachi, saying the pattern has spread from Punjab.
Two alleged police encounters in Islamabad and Karachi within 12 hours left four suspects dead, including two Afghan nationals in the capital, and eight others injured and arrested in Karachi, Minute Mirror reported, describing the killings as part of a continuing pattern of custodial deaths in alleged encounters.
Dunya News reported that two suspected outlaws were killed in an Islamabad police "encounter". Minute Mirror identified both of those killed in the capital as Afghan nationals. The two reports agree on the number killed in Islamabad, but neither carried a police statement naming the dead or setting out the circumstances of the shooting.
According to Minute Mirror, the Karachi operation left eight people wounded, all of whom were then arrested. The outlet said the two incidents together accounted for four deaths.
Minute Mirror said criticism previously directed at the Punjab government and Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif by political circles and human rights organisations, including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, over alleged encounters that killed accused in custody, had now visibly spread from Punjab to the federal capital and Sindh.
No statement from Islamabad police, Karachi police, the Sindh government or the Punjab government appeared in the accounts reviewed. None of those killed or injured has been publicly identified, and no charges against them have been disclosed. It could not be independently established whether any of those killed or arrested were in police custody before the shootings.
Skardu Times could not verify the accounts independently and has not been able to confirm the identities, the number of dead, or the sequence of events beyond what the two outlets published. The reports did not say whether any police personnel were hurt, or whether weapons were recovered.
Pakistan's police forces routinely describe such shootings as encounters with armed suspects. Rights groups have long argued that a number of these cases amount to extrajudicial killings, a charge police reject. The question of accountability has surfaced repeatedly in Punjab this year, and the reports suggest it is now being raised about the capital and Sindh as well.
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