5th October 2021
By Ahmed Saeed and Rehan Piracha
Tuesday October 5, is the third day of a protest against the killing of a 10-year-old boy in a botched police raid in Kech district, and hundreds of citizens including his family, have converged outside the chief minister’s residence in Quetta.
Relatives of the child Ramiz Khalil brought his body from Turbat. The boy was killed after the police raided his home in Buledi tehsil, Kech district, on October 2, on pretext of arresting some offenders.
Another eight-year-old boy, Rayan, was also wounded in the botched raid while the police arrested the boy’s father Khalil Rind for opening fire on the police team.
The boy’s uncle Zarif Rind is the chairman of the Baloch Students Organisation.
Police claim they had raided the house to arrest two proclaimed offenders but the house owner Khalil Rind had opened fire on them. But the Rind family refuted police claims and said the policemen opened indiscriminate fire as they barged inside the house, killing Ramiz. The injured Rayan is currently being treated for bullet wounds.
The family said no first investigation report (FIR) has been lodged for Ramiz’s killing although police have filed a case against Khalil Rind.
Following the boy’s death, the relatives took his dead body to Shaheed Fida Chowk in Turbat city. The protesters staged a sit-in there for two days, demanding release of Khalil Rind and arrest of police officials involved in the boy’s killing.Irfan Gharsheen, commissioner of Makran division, held a series of talks with the protesters but the negotiations remained inconclusive. The protesters then announced that they would take the dead to Quetta and hold a sit-in outside the Balochistan Chief Minister’s residence there.
On Monday, Gharsheen told family members that a joint investigation team has been constituted to probe the boy’s murder while Khalil Rind would be released by the evening if they call off the protest. However, the protesters turned down the commissioner’s request to end the protest
