Last month, a case was registered with the Sabzi Mandi police after it was revealed that the challan of a three-year-old murder case had gone missing in the hands of the investigating officer (IO).

The police came to know about the missing document when the district court informed them that the challan of the case registered in October 2011 had not yet been submitted for trial.

Police officers told Dawn that Mohammad Abdullah, a class II student, used to go to school at G-8/4 and back home at Model Town in a Suzuki pickup. On October 21, 2011, he left for his school along in the same vehicle. However, at 4pm the driver informed Abdullah’s father that the boy was not in the school.

A hectic search was launched by the family but the boy remained untraced. When the father again called the driver, he said he was near a university at H-10 and was looking for the child.

Later, Sajjid Mehmood, the father, met the driver who said he picked the child from his school and stopped at the university at H-10 where some other students were to board the vehicle. However, he left to offer Friday prayers leaving behind the children in the pickup. The driver said when he returned from the prayers, the child was missing.

He told the father that Abdullah might have embarked on another vehicle. The next day, the driver told the father that the boy might have been kidnapped.

After three days, the father lodged a complaint with the police stating that the driver was responsible for the disappearance of his son.

On the fourth day, the drier called Mr Mehmood and said he was near the university at H-10 and there was a gutter filled with sewage. He expressed the doubt that Abdullah might have fallen in it. In response, Mr Mehmood reached the spot and found the body of his son in the gutter.

CCTV footage of the university obtained by the police showed that after offering the Friday prayers the driver returns and sits along a wall while Abdullah is near the gutter. The footage also shows that Abdullah was accompanied by a son of the pickup driver.

Later, the two children walk towards the gutter and the driver follows them. Shortly afterwards, the driver is seen talking to his son but Abdullah is not visible.

The victim’s father told the police that the driver and his son knew what had happened with his son but they concealed the facts and as a result his son’s body remained in the gutter for four days. He requested the police to interrogate the driver to know the circumstances under which his son lost his life.

In response, the Sabzi Mandi police registered a case against the driver on November 10, 2011, under section 322 (murder without intention) and 202 (intentional omission to give information of offence by person bound to inform).

In March this year, the capital police got notice from the court of Civil Judge Humayun Dilawar that the challan of the case had not been submitted.

In response, the police checked its record and found that the IO of the case, ASI Najeebullah, had completed the challan and sent it to the police legal branch for submission to the court on December 9, 2011.

However, the challan was returned to the IO with some objections and asking him to address them on December 31, 2011. In response, the IO prepared a case file stating that he had addressed the objections and was taking the challan to the police legal department for submission to the court.

However, there is no evidence that the IO submitted the challan to the legal department. It seems that the challan was still with the IO or he had misplaced it. On the direction of the IGP, a case was registered against the IO on April 14. According to the FIR, there was no trace of the challan since December 31, 2011, after it was given to the IO.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play