LAHORE: Police have booked caretaker of a Shahdara seminary for allegedly unleashing his pet lion on an electrician for demanding wages around a month back.

The electrician had suffered multiple injuries in the incident that had occurred on Sept 9.

According to police sources, Ali Raza, the caretaker of Imambargah Sada-e-Imam Hussain, was booked in an attempted murder case after around a month of the incident because the complaint was lodged just two days back.

The complaint, Mohammad Rafique, said he was compelled to lodge the complaint after the suspect refused to get his wounds treated as per his commitment and denied him the compensation he had pledged.

According to the FIR, Ali Raza had hired the electrician for some work at the Imambargah. When Rafique demanded the wages after finishing the job, Raza told him to come some other day for collecting the payment.

It said the caretaker kept delaying the payment and finally when Rafique insisted, Raza got annoyed and unleashed his pet lion on him. It added that the lion mauled the electrician’s arm, besides inflicting wounds on his face.

The complainant said that during the attack, the suspect and his three unidentified accomplices acted as mere spectators and did not even try to rescue him from the beast.

Meanwhile, he said, some passers-by rushed to the scene after hearing his cries and managed to rescue him.

The police, after verifying the incident, lodged a case against Ali Raza under section 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2019