Killing of young social media star unleashes rage over extrajudicial murders
KARACHI: The killing of a young social media star in Pakistan’s chaotic port city of Karachi has unleashed festering anger at a rash of alleged extrajudicial murders and the police accused of orchestrating them.
Hundreds of people die each year at the hands of law enforcement officers under pressure to crack down on kidnapping, murder and gang crime in a city routinely ranked among the most dangerous in the world.
But the fatal shooting of 23year-old Naqeebullah Mehsud, an aspiring model whose goofy dance videos and airbrushed brown locks had earned him a large Facebook following, brought thousands of people onto the streets to urge an end to impunity.
“We demand that his killer be hanged publicly,” said Mohammad Khan Mehsud of a national outcry over his son’s death.
“We saw people from all the four provinces (of Pakistan) — men and women, kids, youngsters and sisters — show solidarity with Naqeebullah”.
Mehsud was shot dead along with three other people in what police say was an operation targeting Taliban insurgents on Jan 3.
Friends and relatives insist the Internet celebrity had no connection to militancy.
They say he was the victim of a so-called ‘encounter killing’ — an ‘encounter’ being police shorthand for when a suspect resists arrest.
Such deaths have surged in Karachi since 2013 when paramilitary forces and police launched a massive ‘clean up’ operation targeting Taliban militants, organised crime networks and armed political muscle.
In its wake, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan ( HRCP) said there were at least 598 extrajudicial killings in 2014 and an additional 343 the following year.
A preliminary investigation headed by Sanaullah Abbasi, chief of Karachi’s Counter Terrorism Department, said the encounter involving Mehsud was probably staged. — AFP