FAISALABAD: Police on Tuesday exonerated former SHO of People’s Colony police of killing a 15-year-old boy in an ‘encounter’ and submitted his discharge report to the judicial magistrate.

The magistrate, however, remained unconvinced and sent Farhad Cheema on judicial remand.

Mohammad Ali, the applicant of the murder case registered against Cheema, and witnesses also refused to pursue the case and submitted affidavit, police claimed. Magistrate Mohammad Asif disagreed with the police report and turned down the request of discharging the accused.

The Punjab government has already announced Rs1 million financial assistance for the bereaved family. A three-member team headed by SSP (Investigation) Bilal Umar had been formed to investigate the case to ensure ‘justice’ for the family of Farhan.

Shaukat Ali, investigation officer, submitted the discharge report to court and said the 13-day physical remand of the accused had been obtained from court for interrogation during which he had been found innocent. He said the applicant and witnesses also had refused to pursue the case and they had submitted an affidavit in this regard.

The court, while sending the former SHO on judicial remand, mentioned in its order that witnesses recorded their supplementary statement wherein they also categorically nominated the present accused persons in the commission of offence and specific attribution of firing is made over the present accused person (Cheema).

A murder case was registered against Cheema and three other policemen on allegation of killing Farhan and injuring his friend Fahad on Susan Road when they were grabbing pictures holding a toy-pistol for their Facebook profile. Only Cheema had been arrested in the case and the other accused are still at large.

A case of police encounter had also been registered by the accused SHO against Farhan and Fahad under sections 186, 324, 353 of PPC for possession of illegal weapon. The SHO claimed in the FIR that he was on routine patrolling along with constables Aurangzeb, Arif and Imran when a security guard, Naseer, had informed him that two masked motorcyclists were looting valuables from people at gunpoint near Sabina Park, Officers Colony.

After reaching the spot, the SHO claimed that he had detected the two boys and asked them to surrender. Seeing the police, the SHO said, the boys opened fire and one of them received a bullet fire by his fellow who fled the scene. The police captured the injured and also recovered pistol along with three live bullets from his possession, he said.

A police officer told Dawn that the FIR against boys would be quashed as it had proved bogus.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2015

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