GUJRAT: Forensic evidence collected from the crime scene and online data of National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) helped police trace the “killer” of five members of a family murdered at Moinuddinpur Syedan village.

Police claimed on Sunday last to have arrested Mustajab Shah, 16, for killing his parents and three siblings.

District Police Officer Sohail Zafar Chattha told Dawn that police had collected 15 empties from the house of bank manager Syed Tasawar Shah who along with his wife Samia Khawar, two sons Mursal Haider and Salman Haider and a daughter was gunned down in his house.

The empties collected within an hour of the incident had been fired with an AK-47 short machine gun, he said.

He said Mustajab Shah, was the sole survivor in the incident, but due to sympathy with the boy and his maternal uncle nominating the family’s old rivals as suspects, police did not interrogate the juvenile suspect.

He said the police sent the empties and other evidence found at the crime scene for forensic examination to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency in Lahore.

Meanwhile, the investigation team checked the personal data of the slain family head, Tasawar Shah, from Nadra that showed the deceased had a licence of an AK-47 SMG.

The police then asked the complainant, Sharjeel Shah, to produce the gun owned by the deceased. The weapon was also sent for forensic test. The forensic report confirmed that the empties found from the crime scene had actually been fired from Tasawar Shah’s gun.

The DPO said the forensic report led the police to interrogate Mustajab who confessed to have committed the crime.

The suspect told police that first he shot his father and then killed the remaining members of the family who were asleep in one room.

After committing the crime, he went to his maternal grandfather’ s house located nearby and told his uncles a concocted story that some unidentified assailants killed his parents and three siblings.

After Mustajab’s confession, the police exonerated all the nominated suspects in the case and also freed those detained initially.

The police on Monday produced Mustajab before a judicial magistrate who granted his15-day physical remand.

The case was lodged under sections 302, 109, 148 and 149 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and sections 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act on Sept 5 the last.

Published in Dawn November 10th, 2016