By Staff Reporter
MULTAN: A 15-year-old boy who ran from the contractor teaching him to be an electrician was chased down and killed by a car in Multan, police said, in an incident captured on CCTV.
Waseem Abbas died at the scene on Monday, in a private housing society within the jurisdiction of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) police station. Rescue officials said he suffered a severe head injury. His body was taken to Nishtar Hospital, Multan, under police supervision.
On Tuesday, Judicial Magistrate Saadia Aslam granted police physical remand of the main suspect, the contractor Tauqeer Nazir, after police brought him to court, where lawyers beat him and tore his clothes before officers pulled him out and took him to a police station in a rickshaw. Police had asked for 14 days of physical remand for investigation.
Multan’s City Police Officer (CPO), Akhtar Farooq, told reporters that raids were under way to arrest a second suspect, Amjad Ali. “We all are in deep pain,” he said, adding that the orphan had been “subjected to barbarity”. He said police had made themselves complainants in the case so that the two sides could not reach a compromise.
CCTV footage of the incident shows a boy running along a road after spotting a car. The car swerves and pursues him, then strikes him. The boy is thrown into the gate of a nearby house and dies on impact.
The first information report (FIR), registered at the DHA police station on Monday, names Nazir and Ali as suspects. It invokes Sections 302 (intentional murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
According to the FIR, Sub-Inspector Liaquat Ali Bhatti was on patrol with colleagues in Royal Orchard at about 4.35pm when a man named Mukhtiar Ahmed approached them. He said his cousin Waseem had been working for the suspects and had been subjected to violence and threatened with death.
The report states that officers saw Waseem running in fear, followed by a Honda car with the registration number BVE-474. It alleges the suspects ran him over deliberately, and that his head struck a pillar at the gate of house 3-A, crushing his skull.
Two residents, Saqlain Raza and Syed Naseem Abbas, are named as witnesses. They told police that Waseem had passed them shortly before the incident, saying the suspects wanted to kill him and that he was running to save his life.
The FIR says the car stopped after the impact and the suspects tried to flee. Nazir was caught at the scene while Ali escaped. The vehicle was seized.
Police said initial inquiries had found no evidence that the boy had stolen anything.
In an initial statement to police, Nazir reportedly said the boy used to leave work without permission and that he had driven after him to stop him. Shoaib Haider, general secretary of the orphanage, said the contractor had also told him his car slipped while he was following Waseem, who he said had grown tired running on foot.
Haider said the video did not appear to support that account. “It looks as though he was hit with the car,” he said, adding that Nazir would have to explain during the investigation why the boy had run from him.
Waseem had lived at the orphanage for five years and wanted to learn electrical work, Haider said. It had sent him to Nazir about a week before his death after making inquiries about the contractor, who employed a team of 40 to 45 boys. The orphanage had received no previous complaints about him. A second boy from the facility who had been working for the contractor was brought back after the killing.
Waseem’s cousin Nadeem, who has lived at the orphanage for six years, said the teenager had often said he did not want to go to the electrician and wanted to return home. Nadeem said he had never met Nazir.
Waseem’s father died nine years ago. His uncle, Jafar Hussain, said the boy was first supported by his maternal grandfather, then lived with him for two to three years, before the two men placed him in the orphanage. Residents said Waseem and his brother were admitted after their mother remarried.
His maternal grandfather said he wanted the boy to get an education rather than struggle on the streets. He also called for the suspect to be punished.
“Tauqeer deliberately killed my nephew,” Hussain told reporters. “I know what condition Waseem was in and how I saw him.” He demanded justice.
Funeral prayers were held in Mouza Daulatpur and Waseem was buried in his ancestral graveyard. The prayers were held quickly because of the condition of the body. Only close relatives and orphanage officials attended.
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