SIALKOT, May 29: A four-year-old boy could hardly imagine that the price of a mobile phone set could cost him life as he was put to knife by his neighbours on the charge of cellphone theft on Thursday.

The Mahaar village (Pasrur) child’s only sin was that he picked a cellphone of his neighbour and took it to his home considering it a plaything; the owners aptly branded him a thief despite his parents’ entreaties and efforts to convince them that it was nothing more than a childlike act.

Reports said Hamza, the son of Naib Subedar of Pakistan Army Iftikhar Ahmad, was playing with the children of Muhammad Younis at the latter’s place when he mistakenly took a mobile phone set to his home. His parents, however, returned the mobile in no time.

Younis and his wife, Munazzah Bibi, took it for an insult and in order to teach a lesson to the neighbours kidnapped Hamza from outside his house and beat him black and blue. Later, they went to the extreme of slaughtering the child with knife.

They were taking the body, packed in a sack, to dump it in the village outskirts but some people spotted them and trapped them through questioning. They got hold of the body and handed over the couple to the police.

Younis and his wife confessed that they had slaughtered the child to punish him for stealing their mobile phone. The police jailed the couple after registering a murder case against them.

Hamza was laid to rest at a village graveyard amid hundreds weeping. Many villagers joined the funeral after hearing about the incident.