By Staff Rep
CHAKWAL: A post-mortem examination has confirmed that Hania Ahmed, a nine-year-old Australian national killed during a botched police operation in Pakistan last week, sustained ten gunshot wounds — five bullets, each passing clean through her small body, leaving both entry and exit wounds.
Hania died at the roadside in Chakwal, a city in Punjab province, on the night of 11 June after officers from Pakistan’s Crime Control Department (CCD) opened fire on the family’s car, apparently mistaking it for a vehicle carrying robbers who had just targeted them. Her father, Adeel Ahmed, 39, and her ten-year-old brother, Aafan, were critically injured. Her mother, Dr Sidra Khan, was unharmed.
The post-mortem, conducted at District Headquarters Hospital Chakwal, recorded wounds to the child’s chest, abdomen, thighs and left arm. The examination began at 4:27am after her body was brought to the mortuary shortly after 1:30am. “She was hit by five bullets, which appeared to have been fired from AK-47 rifles,” a senior doctor at the hospital told local Dawn newspaper.
“The five bullets caused ten wounds, as all of them passed through her body, leaving both entry and exit wounds.” Medical examiners concluded that the injuries were consistent with firearm trauma and recorded the cause of death accordingly.
The killing has provoked widespread anger in both Pakistan and Australia, drawing scrutiny to the CCD — a unit already operating under considerable institutional pressure — and raising urgent questions about the use of lethal force, accountability within provincial law enforcement, and the adequacy of the Pakistani state’s response when the victim holds foreign citizenship.
In an audio message, Adeel Ahmed gave his most detailed account yet of the moments leading to his daughter’s death. He alleged that the officers had pursued their car after the shooting, and that it was only by managing to flee that the rest of his family survived. “My daughter was martyred on the spot,” he said. “CCD officers chased us, but luckily, I managed to escape. Had they caught up with us, they would have killed us all to cover up their crime.”
His account of the sequence of events directly challenges the official version. He alleged that the robbers had not initiated the gunfire — that it was the CCD officers who opened fire first — and that the criminal actors fired only two rounds before making their escape. He also alleged that more than one officer was involved. “Two to three officers had opened fire on them,” he said. The robbers, he claimed, fled while his family remained in the line of fire.
His criticism of the CCD’s conduct was unsparing. “Look at the incompetence of the CCD personnel,” he said. “When they saw that robbers were looting us, instead of waiting for the situation to unfold, they started firing. If firing was necessary, they should have done so after the robbers had finished their act. They are highly incompetent and lack professionalism.”
Ahmed further alleged that senior officials were attempting to obstruct justice and protect those responsible, and expressed deep dissatisfaction with the government’s response. Two officials from the Australian Consulate visited the family in hospital, he said, and offered their support — though he made clear that financial assistance was not what he was seeking. “All I want is for the accused who committed this brutality against us to be punished so that such incidents do not occur in the future,” he said.
CCD chief Sohail Zaffar Chatha visited the bereaved family on Sunday, offering his condolences and travelling to Hania’s grave, where he laid flowers and recited fateha. Speaking to reporters, Chatha acknowledged that his officer had used excessive force and described the incident as “highly shocking.” His account of events described a chaotic scene in which CCD officers responded to a robbery in progress, became caught in crossfire as suspects sheltered behind the family’s vehicle, and then lost sight of the robbers as they fled in the opposite direction.
“The official used excessive force based on a misjudgement, which deprived us of an innocent and beautiful life,” Chatha said. He insisted that the CCD would not shield its own officers and that his visit to the family was intended to demonstrate as much.
The CCD chief confirmed that a charge of murder under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code had been added to the first information report filed in the case, and that the matter would now proceed through the courts. Whether that assurance will satisfy a grieving father remains far from certain. “The government did not help us,” Adeel Ahmed said in his audio message. “We are not satisfied with the circumstances.” Hania Ahmed was nine years old.
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