RAWALPINDI: Two policemen of the city lost their lives over the weekend but their families have not heard of any compensation from any quarter.

Salman Naeem, 30, died of 70pc burns to his body in a hospital in Wah -which he received in an accidental fire in his Adiala Road house- because the two hospitals in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad which have burn wards would not take him in for treatment.

His officer, SSP Operations Irfan Tariq, came to help his family get him a place in the Wah hospital with a burn ward.

Salman’s wife, Ruqaiya Bano, is l in the Holy Family Hospital for her burn wounds and is in critical condition, according to the younger brother of the deceased, Sanaullah.

Fortunately, other members of the family, the couple’s four-year-old and two-year-old daughters and their grandmother escaped the fire, which Sanaullah blamed on low pressure of gas supply.

“My brother had returned home tired on Monday. He put water on a stove for a hot bath. It took so long that he went into a sleep, waiting for the water to heat up,” he told Dawn.

“When he woke up he found the flame had died and he lit up a match. That ignited the gas that had leaked meanwhile and filled the room where his wife was also sleeping. There was a loud explosion and both my brother and his wife were trapped in the resulting fire,” he said.

While the tragedy was still making news on television channels on Saturday, Constable Atif Naseer, 29, met his death in celebratory firing at the wedding of his friend, Ibrar in Qasimabad in the Waris Khan police station precinct.

Five bullets pierced Atif’s body, a gunman to SP Chaudhry M. Iqbal of Rawal Town, in the incident and the doctors of the hospital he was rushed to declared him dead on arrival.

Celebratory firing is banned in Punjab but police had been unable to enforce the law.

Waris Khan police, however, arrested the bridegroom soon after and two other accused.

Both were nominated in the FIR filed by the father of the deceased, Naseem Ahmed Minhas. The aggrieved father alleged in the FIR that on Saturday night his son Atif had gone to the wedding of Ibrar alias Bari, along with his friend Bilal Shah.

According to him, during the ceremony Rizwan Butt and Sadique Khan arrived carrying Kalashnikovs and Irfan a 30-bore gun along with some other individuals and went up to the top floor of the house where the bridegroom and his family were sitting.

When he saw his friends, the bridegroom shouted for celebrating his wedding and the three armed men started firing, though his son Atif attempted to stop them as it was an illegal practice, claimed the aggrieved father.

He also alleged that Saddiq Khan and Rizwan Butt targeted his son and injured him critically.

Published in Dawn January 24th, 2017