September 17, 2008	Wednesday	Ramazan 16, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Sept 16: The statements of ten police officials were recorded by the inquiry officer in a case relating to the killing of a boy during the September 13 gunbattle between the police and car lifters here on Tuesday.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Rana Akber Hayat was appointed as the inquiry officer after the prime minister ordered an investigation into the incident.

Sources said the statements of the victim’s father, people of the area and eyewitnesses could not be recorded due to their absence. The victim’s father and family members were busy in the deceased’s post-burial rituals, they added.

The inquiry officer also maintained the list of police officials who took part in the action against the car lifters.

The officials, whose statements were recorded, claimed that the police opened fire in retaliation to the fire from the car lifters, adding a senior police officer of the area had arrived on the spot soon after the end of the gunbattle.

Shortly after the auto-thieves lifted a car from G-9/1, the Margalla police gave a chase to the culprits and also alerted the city police.

After getting information that the car was on Ninth Avenue, the Shalimar, Sabzi Mandi and Industrial Area police also swung into action.

However, the Margalla police succeeded to intercept the vehicle on Khayban Chowk but the culprits tried to speed away, the sources said. As a result, the police opened fire on the bandits in the presence of the senior officer, the sources added.

One of the bullets hit the boy, Zeeshan, a resident of CDA Colony Sector I-10/1 who was going to the market along with his father.

The sources said the victim’s father in his statement recorded with the assistant commissioner Saddar stated that “I am a poor man and cannot afford a postmortem and police investigation,” the sources said.

“I just want to get my son’s body back and take it to my native town for burial,” he said in the statement recorded on the night of September 13.

The sources said at the time of recording of the statement, the AC observed that the father seemed to be under pressure of the police and was also a little bit afraid.