November 13, 2006	Monday	Shawwal 20, 1427

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VEHARI, Nov 12: The police of Vehari and Faisalabad have failed to resolve the controversy about the eight-year old boy’s body as two families keep insisting that the child was theirs.

An eight-member family of Ibrahim, along with five police officials, reached Vehari from Faisalabad on Thursday last and during talks with the local law enforcers it sounded certain that the boy was none other than their Ibrahim.

However, the police had already handed over the body to the local claimant family which even buried the boy whom they called Sunny Latif.

The visiting party, including Inspector Muhammad Husain, union council naib nazim Rana Khalid Farooq and boy’s father Ghulam Mustafa, told Dawn at the DPO office that they had received the pictures of the body and Ibrahim’s mother had identified the clothes. Besides, a shopkeeper of Faisalabad also corroborated the claim that the clothes the boy had worn were purchased from his shop two months ago.

A photograph expert of Vehari, Zahid Husain Zaidi, too, confirmed after examining all the pictures given by both the parties that it was Ibrahim’s body.

UC No 241 naib nazim Rana Khalid Farooq and labour councillor Muhammad Akmal of Batala Colony said they had visited Karampur area and met various people who claimed that it was not Sunny.

A senior police officer of Vehari told this correspondent that he believed in the light of investigation and all available evidences that it was Ibrahim’s body and the other family was mistaking him to be their son.

The Karampur family, on the other hand, keeps insisting that the murdered boy was Sunny. His father Abdul Latif and other members of the family said they had identified the body before taking it to Karampur. One of the family members, Hanif, however, said when the body reached Karampur from Chichawatni, it was decomposed.

Meanwhile, Saddar DSP Malik Rafiq Khokhar said Asif and others — the alleged murderers — had yet to confess to the crime. The local claimant family also accuses the police of being lenient to the accused as they have yet to start investigation.

As for the Faisalabad arrests, the Batala Colony police claimed that the four arrested men had confessed to killing Ibrahim and identified the body.

DSP Khokhar said a final decision to solve the matter would be taken after the Karampur’s family see the men in the Faisalabad police custody. Karampur SHO Saeed Lodhi and family members of Sunny have gone to Faisalabad for the purpose.

When contacted, Vehari DPO Malik Tassadaq Hayat said a two-member team comprising DSP Khokar and DSP (headquarters) Abdul Majeed Chishti had been constituted to resolve the issue. In case of their failure to reach any conclusion, the police had the option of going for the DNA test.

Earlier, the Faisalabad-based family claimed that seven-year old Ibrahim had been kidnapped for ransom on Sept 11 and later killed by the culprits. The Karampur family claimed that on Aug 12 eight-year old Sunny was kidnapped and killed.

The Chichawatni police had found the body on Sept 13 from a Sui gas pipeline near canal and they buried it in a local graveyard. Later, the Karampur family was brought to the graveyard and it performed the last rites after exhumation of the body on Nov 1.

DISMISSED: Two police officials were dismissed on Sunday after they were proved guilty of receiving bribe.

Reports said a few days ago a resident of Luddan, Mazhar Lakhwera filed an application with the IGP alleging that Inspector Fayyaz Shah and Asi Malik Nosher, an investigation officer, took thousands of rupees from him and even then did not register a case.

An SP (investigation) of Bahawalpur inquired into the matter on the orders of the IGP and found the officials guilty.