FAISALABAD: The parents and relatives of a boy who was shot dead allegedly by a security guard at a plaza on Wednesday staged a demonstration on Sargodha Road, demanding arrest of the plaza owners.

The protesters gathered near Lasani Pulli and threw traffic out of gear for more than two hours. They chatted slogans against the police and plaza owners as well, demanding their arrest.

Twelve-year-old Saqlain Irfan was allegedly shot dead by a security guard, Muhammad Mumtaz, when he along with his three friends entered a plaza to catch a stray kite. The boy’s friends managed to flee the plaza premises.

Millat Town police registered a murder case against the guard, who is already in custody and the plaza owners on the complaint of Irfan Ali, the father of the deceased boy. However, the names of the plaza owners have not been mentioned in the FIR. Irfan Ali told Dawn that his son and three other children had entered the Pearl City plaza to catch a stray kite. The security guard on duty opened straight fire on the children, he added.

“As my son was handicapped, he could not run fast like others and the bullet hit his chest,” the grieving father said.

About two months ago, he said, the plaza guards had also resorted to aerial firing to shoo away the children who used to enter the building premises to catch currency notes showered by the guests during wedding functions held at a banquet hall there.

He said that he and some other residents of the locality had requested the plaza owners to ask the guards to show restraint while dealing with the children as they were no criminals, but to no avail.

Holding the plaza owners responsible for his son’s death, he asked how a guard could open fire without the permission of his employer(s).

Ali said that he along with his relatives wanted to stage a protest immediately after the firing incident, but the deputy superintendent of police (DSP) concerned had stopped them, assuring that the actual culprits (the plaza owners) would be brought to the book.

However, he said, despite the assurance, the police were taking no action against the plaza owners who had “connections in the right places”. He deplored that neither the police mentioned the names of plaza owners in the FIR nor arrested them.

The police claimed that the FIR of the incident mentioned all the facts related by the complainant.

Police would make plaza owners part of the investigation if the complainant named them in the FIR, a police official said.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2017