Four police officers were arrested on Wednesday after a 19-month-old boy was killed in crossfire near Safoora Chowrangi at Karachi’s University Road, in yet another incident of alleged police negligence during a shootout with suspected criminals.
The toddler, Ahsan, died when a bullet entered his chest and exited through his back, the post-mortem report revealed. The bullet also grazed and injured the child’s father, Kashif Raja, who said his son was killed by a bullet fired by a policeman while the family were climbing into a rickshaw near Safoora Chowrangi within the limits of Sachal Police Station on Tuesday evening.
The child’s funeral prayers were offered earlier today, in Block 8 of Gulistan-e-Johar.
Four police officers were arrested on charges of murder and attempted murder, after a first information report (FIR) was registered on behalf of the toddler’s father.
The bereaved parents, however, rejected the FIR saying that it was not filed according to their wishes and that the police were trying to protect the officials involved in the incident.
Speaking to Geo News, the deceased’s mother said she, her husband, and her late son were going to the market to buy groceries in a rickshaw when police officers on a motorcycle started firing.
The officers, she claimed, opened fire right in front of her and there was no “encounter”.
According to Additional Police Surgeon Dr Shiraz, the toddler was shot from a distance of 10-15 feet. The surgeon determined that the cause of the death was a bullet to the chest.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah demanded report of the incident, while Murtaza Wahab, adviser to the chief minister on law and information, stressed that an investigation into the incident should not be carried out by police as they had been accused in the case.
Cases of alleged police encounters gone wrong have been frequent in Pakistan, with names of Amal, 10, Intezar, 19, Nimra, 22, and Maqsood fresh in one’s mind.
