Armed man with wife, children opens fire in Pakistan’s capital; demands Islamic system

Eurasia News

ISLAMABAD: An armed man, carrying a Kalashnikov and a sub-machine gun‚ in a black car resorted to aerial firing on Jinnah Avenue near Red Zone in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, on Thursday evening, demanding that the current system be removed in the country and that an Islamic system replace it.

According to Dispatch News Desk reports, security has been tightened in Islamabad after police received an alert about possible attacks by militants operating from the tribal areas on Pakistan’s lawless border with Afghanistan.

“I am against vulgarity and immorality. My associates have taken up positions in the whole of Pakistan,” he told a local TV channel.

According to details, an armed man named as Sikandar hailing from Hafizabad, entered in Red Zone of Islamabad in a black car, with his wife Kanwal and two little children, Farwa and Abdul Malik, and created fear and harassment with aerial firing in the locality.

Heavy contingent of police including many senior police officials including SSP Dr. Rizwan has reached at the scene to control the situation and persuade the man to surrender peacefully.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM),a major political party in Pakistan’s southern province, lawmaker Nabeel Gabol who also has reached the site to talk to him, said that “Sikandar is not mentally sound.” “Sikandar is angry at the politicians.”

While Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has ordered that the man be arrested alive. He has said that the woman and the children be kept safe.

On the other hand, the armed man has said that “I want to be inside the Parliament. I want to negotiate with Nabeel Gabol and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.”

Kanwal, who has completed her MPhil in Economics, reported to be Sikandar’s second wife.

Police reports suggest that the man is a drug addict and is not in a mentally sound condition. They said that Sikandar has another wife, Hania, in Dubai. This man also had lived in Dubai for over 20 years. Few years back, he returned to country and settled in Mohala Qazipura of Hafizabad.

“We are prepared to arrest him,” Islamabad police official said, while reports said that a contingent of police has also reached Sikandar Hayat’s house in Hafizabad but his family reportedly locked his house and fled.

According to reports, policemen have asked Sikandar to let his children and his wife go.

“If something happens to me, it will happen to them too,” Sikandar has said.

“Firing on Jinnah Avenue in Islamabad on August 15, 2013”