A police officer committed suicide during duty hours at Gharo police station on Thursday morning.
Assistant sub-inspector of police Ali Gul Chandio shot himself with a service rifle and was rushed to the Rural Health Center Gharo, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
Details revealed after the policeman’s suicide suggest that Chandio was the complainant in a case of a police encounter against some influential land grabbers of the area.
The police encounter triggered by a land dispute had taken place around five months ago near Babra stop near Gharo in which two policemen were martyred and one was left critically injured.
Gharo police retaliated and killed Sadru Walhari who was said to be the head of the gang of the area. It was also claimed by the police that Sadru Walhari was working for the party that had forcibly occupied the land.
It was also disclosed that the owners of the controversial land had included the name of the late policeman in a number of false cases for which he was facing legal action.
Speaking to reporters, SHO Gharo said that Ali Gul Chandio arrived at the police station as per routine and was collecting the files of the cases for which he had to appear on Thursday. However, before leaving for the court, he went into the storeroom where he shot himself.
“We rushed to the storeroom as soon as we heard the gun shots only to see him lying in a pool of blood. We took him to the basic health unit where he was pronounced dead on arrival,” said SHO Gharo.
He further said that with the burden of cases and administrative pressure, he was in a state of desperation that might have compelled him to take the extreme step.
According to the initial postmortem report, the deceased suffered three bullet wounds one in the chest and two in the abdomen. The SHO said that a thorough inquiry had been initiated into the mysterious killing of the cop.
However, relatives of the deceased claimed that he had been killed under a deep-rooted conspiracy. They demanded the chief justice of the Sindh High Court to take notice of the matter.
