New Delhi: Karachi is on the boil amid rumours that the Sindh police chief was kidnapped by army troops to coerce cops into arresting Safdar, the son-in-law of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Pakistan’s army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
According to a statement issued by the military’s media wing, the army chief directed the Karachi Corps Commander to “immediately inquire into the circumstances” to determine the facts and file a report as soon as possible.
The statement did not specify which incident it was referring to, but it comes after PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari called on “institutions” to investigate the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Safdar.
Safdar and his wife, PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz, were in the city to attend a rally of the opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) when he was arrested from their hotel for allegedly disrespecting the mausoleum of the country’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He was subsequently released on bail.
According to information posted latest 22 Karachi police officers died in clashes that broke out in the Pakistan city. It also claimed that a ‘civil war’ has broken out following clashes between Sindh police and the Army. The report could not be immediately confirmed.