ISLAMABAD: An 11-year-old boy was murdered in the capital, police said on Friday.

The victim has been identified as Mohammad Hamad, police said. His uncle told police that he and the child were going to his friend’s house in I-9 from New Katarian in Rawalpindi when individuals on a motorcycle fired at Hamad when they reached the service road.

The police quoted him as saying that he called his brother and they took the body to a hospital.

The Islamabad police learned of the incident after the body had been taken to the Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi. The police took custody of the body and moved it to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

Industrial Area Superintendent of Police (SP) Zubair Shaikh told Dawn that the statement from the child’s uncle appeared to contradict facts. The police examination of the body found marks of physical abuse, which also increased suspicions, he said.

The SP said that while the victim’s uncle told police the child was shot once by the motorcyclists, there were five bullet injuries to the body. His claim that he was going to meet a friend and called his brother to take the body to the hospital has also been contradicted.

He said that the body was handed over to the child’s mother. The child’s parents are divorced, his father lives in Chakri and his mother in Pindorian.

The police have registered a case in response to a complaint lodged by the child’s father, and are investigating the child’s uncle as a suspect, he said.

Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Senator Rehman Malik has sought a report from Inspector General of Police Islamabad Mohammad Aamir Zulfikar Khan and issued directives to Islamabad Chief Commissioner Amer Ali Ahmed to ban the display of firearms as well as openly carrying them.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2020