Adeel Ahmed, whose nine-year-old daughter Hania was killed during an alleged robbery in Chakwal, has accused City Police Sub-Inspector (SI) Ahsan Abdullah of fabricating the FIR [First Information Report] to shield the actual accused and of forcing him to sign a blank paper before he was allowed medical treatment.
In an application submitted to District Police Officer (DPO) Kashif Zulfiqar, Adeel alleged that Constable Ateeque misbehaved with him at the police service counter when he was brought to District Headquarters Hospital in critical condition.
According to the application, a copy of which is available with a private media outlet, City Police Station personnel arrived at the hospital and listened to Adeel’s account of the incident before Ateeque and Abdullah allegedly pressured him to sign and place his thumbprint on a blank paper, telling him he would be allowed to see a doctor only after doing so.
Adeel recalled that at the time, he and his son were both injured, his daughter had already died and his wife was in shock. He said that after he signed and affixed his thumbprint on the blank paper, he and his son were taken for medical examination and their condition led doctors to refer them to Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital in Rawalpindi.
The father stated that when he travelled to Dhudial the next day for his daughter’s funeral, he met Crime Control Department (CCD) Sub-Inspector Muhammad Irfan, since the case had by then been handed over from the City Police Station to the CCD.
It was during this meeting, Adeel said, he learned the fatal shots had been fired by a CCD constable.
He also claimed that the statement used to register the FIR had been altered by Abdullah, who cited Section 322 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with unintentional murder, instead of Section 302, which covers intentional murder, despite the FIR’s own contents pointing to intentional murder.
The FIR had also blamed the firing on unidentified men who snatched jewellery from Adeel’s wife before taking cover behind a vehicle and shooting. “This was fabricated by Sub-Inspector Ahsan Abdullah solely to benefit the accused,” Adeel alleged.
While Adeel, in his application, has sought legal action against Abdullah and Ateeque, saying their alleged “malicious intentions” should not be allowed to affect the case, DPO Zulfiqar has instructed the Headquarters deputy superintendent of police (DSP) to carry out a fact-finding inquiry.
The DPO has also asked the inquiry officer to wrap up the investigation within three days.
When contacted for comment, a senior police officer at City Police Station dismissed Adeel’s allegations as “baseless”, noting that the FIR had been registered following Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and in the presence of the affected family members.
“The constable who has been accused of misbehaviour did not misbehave. In a situation where a family’s innocent child has been killed, the father and brother are seriously injured and the mother is in severe shock, no one could even imagine misbehaving with such a family,” the officer added.
