KARACHI: Police on Sunday said that they were taking the lynching of 16-year-old alleged thief by a mob in Bahadurabad on Saturday as an ‘act of terror’ as the boy was tortured and killed publicly and videos were made, triggering fear and anger in the people.

Besides, the family of the boy demanded that a terror case be registered against the murder suspects, said Ferozabad SHO Aurangzeb Khattak.

The alleged teenage thief was beaten to death by the angry mob in Bahadurabad, whose videos prior to his death went viral on social media, prompting the Sindh chief minister to take its notice. Subsequently two suspects were arrested and booked.

The SHO said that two suspects allegedly entered a home in Kokan Society to commit theft as per residents’ statement.

One of them escaped while the residents of the house got hold of one suspect. The area people gathered there and subjected him to severe torture. Later law enforcers arrived and took him into custody.

The boy was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The deceased was identified as 16-year-old Rehan, son of Zohair, a resident of Khudadad Colony.

Police surgeon Dr Qarar Ahmed Abbasi said the body was brought to the JPMC at around 3.30pm.

His post-mortem examination was performed and the head injury caused by a “hard and blunt instrument” was declared the cause of death. There were “multiple torture marks on the body”, added Dr Abbasi.

The victim’s family told the media that the teenage boy was a ‘butcher’ who had slaughtered sacrificial animals and had gone to the house to take service charges, but he was ‘mistakenly’ taken as a thief and was killed.

The police arrested two house occupants, Daniyal and Zubair, and registered an FIR against them under Section 316 (punishment for Qatl shibh-i-amd) of the Pakistan Penal Code. The section says whoever commits qatl shibh-i-amd shall be liable to diyat and may also be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 25 years as ta’zir.

The held suspects in their initial statement told the police that they did not kill the boy, but the area people had beaten him to death.

The officer said that Daniyal was the house owner where the deceased had allegedly entered for committing theft while Zubair was his neighbour.

DIG East Amir Farooqi told Dawn that three more suspects in the murder case of the teenage suspect had been arrested, taking the total number to five.

The SHO said the police would invoke Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 against the murder suspects for taking the law into their own hands and they would be presented before the administrative judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court on Monday for remand.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2019