LAHORE: The suspect who allegedly ran a vehicle over a 14-year-old boy in Multan, leaving him dead on the spot, was killed in an “encounter” with a Crime Control Department (CCD) team in Bahawalpur early on Wednesday.
According to a CCD spokesperson, the suspect, Tauqeer, had allegedly escaped from custody while on remand.
A Multan court on Tuesday had granted police three-day physical remand of the suspect accused of running over and killing the orphan boy, who worked as an apprentice electrician for him, in a private housing society.
The suspect was arrested on Monday and presented before Judicial Magistrate Saadia Aslam on Tuesday.
State minister expresses alarm over killings in shoot-outs
According to the spokesperson, the CCD personnel attempted to stop two individuals riding a motorcycle on Bahawalpur’s Northern Bypass when an exchange of fire ensued, leaving the suspect dead.
On Tuesday, police requested a 14-day physical remand of the suspect for investigation. However, the judicial magistrate granted the police a three-day remand.
At the time, Multan City Police Officer (CPO) Akhtar Farooq said while speaking to the media that raids were being conducted for the arrest of a co-suspect.
The CCTV footage of the incident shows a boy running on the road after spotting a car. The car is seen swerving and chasing the boy, eventually hitting him. The boy then rams into the gate of a nearby house and dies on the spot.
A case was registered on the state’s behalf at Multan’s DHA police station.
The first information report (FIR) named two suspects and invoked sections 302 (intentional murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
As per the FIR, the victim’s cousin told police that the boy had reportedly faced violence and threats from the suspects.
Police arrested one of the suspects while the other escaped, the FIR says, adding that the vehicle used by them has been impounded.
Talking to a TV channel, Minister of State for Law and Justice Barrister Aqeel Malik expressed alarm over the killings in the alleged CCD encounters.
He said the killing of a boy in Multan and suicide by a girl in Islamabad were heinous acts and test cases (for police), but the CCD stories cannot be believed. He suggested that fast-track courts could be formed for speedy trial in such cases.
In a post on X, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that killing of the teenager and the death [of the suspect] in an alleged encounter raised “urgent questions about the state’s approach to treating human life and legal safeguards as expendable”.
Expressing alarm at a “disturbing pattern of the state’s failure to protect vulnerable people compounded by the erosion of due process,” the HRCP noted that extrajudicial killings violated the right to due process and “deprive victims and their families of the chance to obtain truth and justice.”
“The perception that such killings are an acceptable way of controlling crime signals that vengeance without accountability is prioritised over justice. We call for an independent, transparent investigation into this case and for an end to extrajudicial killings in all forms,” the commission says.
Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2026
