Iranian Police Kill Four During Pursuit of Suspect in Delgan County

The governor of Delgan County in Sistan and Baluchestan province confirmed reports about the death of four occupants of a vehicle, including a three-year-old girl, due to gunfire from police forces. Houshang Bamari claimed that the driver of the vehicle was a 'drug trafficker' and had 'attempted to flee.' In an interview with ILNA news agency on Sunday, February 26, he also alleged that the driver had previously 'shot at' the Delgan police station and 'fled' in Bahman of the previous year. According to Mr. Bamari, security forces 'pursued the matter with a judicial order and ordered the vehicle to stop two kilometers from Delgan city on Friday night, as the suspect intended to escape.' The report states that security forces fired at the vehicle, killing not only the driver but also a three-year-old girl and two boys aged 18 and 23 who were in the car. Meanwhile, the 'Baluch Activists Campaign' reported that in the police shooting at the vehicle of 27-year-old Moslem Bamari on Thursday, April 23, his three-year-old niece, Hosni Bamari, his brother Hamzeh Bamari, and another 23-year-old named Yaqoub Bamari were killed. This campaign denied reports about Moslem Bamari shooting at the Delgan police station and stated that he had thrown stones at the police station during a protest along with other people from Delgan in Bahman of the previous year. According to this campaign, the protest occurred after police shot at two women who were preventing police from entering the house of a man named Parviz Bamari to arrest two individuals. In recent years, several children in Sistan and Baluchestan province and other cities in Iran have been killed due to police gunfire during pursuits of suspects. For instance, on October 6 of the previous year, during a police raid on a house in Iranshahr, a three-year-old boy and his father were killed. Following that, the prosecutor's office announced that the police were pursuing a suspect involved in 'armed robbery' and 'smuggling' who was present in the house, and the confrontation with police lasted 'one hour,' resulting in the deaths of this individual, the homeowner, and his three-year-old son. About 20 days after this incident, the deputy governor of Dezful announced that police had fired at several drug dealers, and a bullet 'ricocheted after hitting a vehicle and struck a four-year-old child.' The police do not publish accurate statistics on the number of people killed due to accidental police gunfire. Ali Afrasiabi, a faculty member at the Police Sciences University, stated in an article that in the first 10 months of 2012, according to statistics from the legal deputy of the police, 58 people were killed due to accidental shootings by police officers. In 2017, in the city of Shadgan in Khuzestan province, a young man named Hassan Abughbish was shopping when he was killed by a bullet during a police pursuit of two motorcyclists. The 'HRANA' news agency reported, citing an eyewitness, that the reason for the shooting and pursuit was the two motorcyclists fleeing from police due to not having a 'driver's license.' The death of this young man on the evening of Bahman 21, 2017, led to some protests in the city, with reports indicating that the local police station was also set on fire.