LAHORE: A teenage boy committed suicide reportedly by hanging himself with a tree here late on Thursday night.

Saddam Hussain was a brother of journalist Zeenat Shahzadi who had gone missing some eight months ago while on the trail of an Indian citizen reported to have been caught by Pakistani agencies.

His elder brother, Salman, told Dawn on phone that the teenage boy was emotionally attached to his missing sister and very much disturbed by her mysterious disappearance.

Saddam, in his late teens, was an intermediate student in the Government College for Boys, Gulberg, Lahore. He lived with his family in the Chaudhry Colony, Kamahan Road.

Salman said Saddam was the youngest among his three sisters and as many brothers.

He said that on Thursday night Saddam had left the house without informing the family. His cellphone was switched off. “As we were aware that he was depressed we tried to contact him as soon as we realised that he was not at home,” he added.

Salman said he found Saddam’s body swinging from a tree.

He said the death of his brother was like a bombshell for the family which was already in a state of dejection because of Zeenat’s disappearance.

Salman said Zeenat had filed an application with the Supreme Court’s Human Rights Cell on behalf of Fauzia Ansari, the mother of Hamid Ansari, an Indian national who had reportedly gone missing in Pakistan.

According to one version, Hamid was pursuing a Pakistani woman whom he had befriended on the Internet.

The application was accepted and forwarded to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, Salman said.

A few months later, news surfaced in a section of the media, saying that Hamid had been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on charges of spying.

According to some rights campaigners, Hamid has served his sentence and ought to be set free now.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2016