MANSEHRA: Mystery surrounded the death of an eighth grader here on Wednesday as the school insisted that the 13-year-old died a natural death, while his family contradicted the assertion.

A doctor at the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital said currently, it would be premature to say anything with certainty about the cause of the death.

“We’re carrying out medico-legal processes on the body and will share the outcomes with police only after receiving the lab report,” he told reporters.

Ali Shahzad, a student in eighth grade at the Tameer-i-Watan Public School and College’s Ghazikot campus, was shifted to the Kath in critical condition. He died shortly thereafter.

Sajid Mehmood, an uncle of the deceased, lodged an FIR with the City Police Station, suspecting that the school’s administration was “involved” in the death of the student.

He, however, didn’t cite any reason for it.

The police said the deceased’s father worked in Dubai.

In a post on its Facebook page, the school expressed condolences over the death of the student and insisted that Ali Shahzad showed signs of distress in recess and fainted in the washroom, suffering critical injuries.

It added that the boy was rushed to the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital but didn’t survive.

Mohammad Amjad, a police official who heads the reporting room at Kath, said the police registered a case and began an investigation to ascertain the exact cause of the death.

“We await the postmortem’s report, are gathering circumstantial evidence, and will record statements of the deceased’s family and the school’s administration about the death,” he said.

He said the police handed over the body to the family after Kath doctors completed medico-legal formalities.

HELD: Police have arrested over four dozen narcotics dealers after seizing a large cache of drugs in separate raids here.

District police officer Shafeeullah Gandapur told reporters here on Wednesday here that he had given all 17 SHOs of the district 10 days to eliminate networks of narcotics dealers from their respective areas.

He said the SHOs failing to comply with his orders would be removed.

Mr Gandapur said the police seized 67kg of charas, over 3kg of ice drug and almost one kilogramme of heroin and arrested 48 narcotics dealers.

He said the police had formed special teams to crack down on narcotics.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2024