KARACHI: The police guard who allegedly killed the only son of Pesha­war’s deputy inspector general of police in Defence Housing Authority in the wee hours of Saturday was remanded in police custody on Sunday as the victim, Umair Shahab, was laid to rest in a local graveyard.

Funeral prayer for Umair was held at Sultan Masjid in DHA. It was attended by AIG Karachi Mushtaq Ahmed Mahar and other officers. The young victim was laid to rest in Gizri graveyard.

The Darakhshan police on Sunday registered a case against the arrested police guard, Faqir Mohammed, under Sections 302 (murder) and 392 (punishment for robbery) on the complaint of the victim’s mother, said Station Investigation Officer Rana Abdul Latif.

The mother, Samina Shahab, in her statement before the police said that she was asleep in her room on the upper portion of the home and Umair in his room on the ground floor. Around 1.30am, she heard voice of screaming and when she came down, she saw the door of her son was open.

“I saw that our police guard, constable Faqir Mohammed, was strangulating my son Umair with the help of a rope while my son was lying on the floor, moving his legs,” the grief-stricken mother said in her statement.

She said when she saw this she screa­med owing to which Faqir Mohammed moved towards her. However, she immediately managed to lock the door of the room from outside. In the meantime, her daughter also woke up after hearing the screams and immediately called Madadgar-15 police who reached after a while. She said the police team opened the door and detained Faqir Mohammed.

“I saw a rope around the neck of my son who was lying dead.”

The SIO told Dawn that the suspect had purchased the rope and cut it into four pieces two days prior to the incident as he wanted to eliminate the four members of the family, including Umair’s mother and his two sisters, before committing robbery there. Saturday was the last day of his duty as guard at the residence of DIG Peshawar Shahab Mazhar located on Khayaban-i-Seher. He was supposed to go to his native place in Kandhkot-Kashmor district on Saturday and for this purpose, he bought train ticket from Cantonment Station that was seized from his custody. The police also seized mobile phone and a wrist watch of the victim from the guard’s pocket.

The investigation officer believed that the murder was motivated by ‘robbery’. Therefore, the police had also invoked Section 392 in the murder case.

Meanwhile, the police produced the suspect before the judicial magistrate South and sought his 14-day physical remand. The police argued that they needed the 14-day remand for investigation to ascertain the motive behind the murder and to see whether the suspect acted alone or someone else was also involved in it. However, the magistrate gave three-day remand to the police for investigation.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2017