KARACHI (AFP) – Pakistan on Thursday arrested five soldiers for shooting dead a young man at point blank range in a park after the killing was filmed live and broadcast on television, shocking human rights activists.
Five members of the Rangers paramilitary rounded on unarmed 22-year-old Sarfaraz Shah in Karachi's most exclusive neighbourhood of Clifton on Wednesday, claiming he had tried to rob a policeman's family.
Footage of the incident, filmed by an unidentified cameraman, was broadcast repeatedly on local television stations and uploaded to Internet site YouTube.
The clean-shaven man, wearing black trousers and a navy shirt, is seen crying and pleading for his life as a soldier cocked his rifle at his neck.
A soldier is heard saying: "This is the man" to which the man responds: "I am helpless, my friend."
"Please do not fire, please not, please please," he cried.
After being shot in the hand and thigh, as blood seeps onto the ground, the man pleads: "Please take me to the hospital, please take me, please save me, o friend save me."
He tries to stand, but quickly crumples to the ground. A soldier is heard saying: "Ok, that's enough". The man continues to beg for help as soldiers appear to amble around, watching him fall unconscious.
Several hundred people attended Shah's funeral in Karachi, the country's biggest city which has suffered scores of killings linked to political and ethnic tensions in recent months. Mourners chanted "the Rangers are killers."
lol
