GUJRAT, Feb 11: After failing to track down the murderers of five boys even after months despite receiving startling information, the local police investigators allegedly closed the chapter once and for all.

Information gleaned by this correspondent revealed that five boys were found dead between May 14 and May 29 last year. The Saddar police had recovered the body of a boy, about 12, from a deserted place near Sahnawal village on May 14 last on the pointation of Ghulam Sarwar, a local villager.

The body had torture marks on many parts and blood was oozing out of its mouth and nose at the time of recovery. The police registered a case under section 302 of PPC against some unknown people for killing the boy, who was later identified as Aqeel Abbas of Jalalpur Jattan. The victim's father informed the police that they didn't have any enmity.

Six days after the recovery, the Saddar police found another body at a deserted area of Rahmania (about 100 metres away from the first place) on the indication of Riaz Ahmad, who also belonged to Sahnawal.

Riaz informed the police that he, along with Ghulam Sarwar (the discoverer of the first body), was on his way to Gujrat when he spotted the body in open fields. The face of the boy, who didn't seem more than 15, was burnt and head had two injury marks. The police lodged another FIR.

On May 22, Muhammad Mukhtar, a resident of Bhanowali village, informed the Lalamusa Saddar police about two bodies of teenaged boys found near Bhimber drain.

Both the bodies had torture marks and one of whose throat was cut and sensitive organ chopped off. This time the Lalamusa Saddar police instituted a case.

The next strike on May 29 was again in Gujrat Saddar police station precinct when a hotel owner, Shaukat Husain, informed the police that he had seen body of a boy at Sahnawal village (the same area from where the first body was recovered).

The boy's head was buried and the remaining body burnt. Another case was lodged with the police. The murder of five boys in an identical fashion in 15 days was a clear message for the police that it was a case of serial killing.

Two days after the recovery of the last body, Gujrat DPO Raja Munawar ordered an inquiry into the matter and formed an investigation wing under the supervision of Additional SP Javed Iqbal Shami.

The other investigators were DSP (investigation) Malik Tahir Mahmood, three inspectors - Tariq Warriach, Kafayatullah and Ghulam Ali - sub-inspectors, Muhammad Pervez, Muhammad Nawaz and Abid Husain, and the SHOs concerned.

The DPO directed the team to submit progress report of their inquiry to the higher authorities every Tuesday. At that time, SP Shami admitted that the five identical deaths were serial killings.

Interestingly, the bodies of all the victims were recovered from the area of the headquarters circle (comprising Gujrat Saddar, Lalamusa city and Saddar police stations), but its DSP was not made part of the investigation wing.

Another striking feature was that during the same period in the last year (between April and May), the citizens of Lahore were terrified by strikes of a serial killer, who murdered eight people, most of them labourers, and injured as many using the modus operandi.

On May 5, the Lahore police claimed to have arrested the suspect, who was caught red-handed by some residents of Harbanspura after a foiled attempt on a prayer leader's life. The suspected killer was identified as Liaquat Ali, who belonged to a village near a Sialkot border.

Sources claimed that it was revealed during investigation that Liaquat had allegedly got Rs25,000 for each murder. The killer, they said, had committed the crime to spread terror whose sponsors could be foreigners or internal anti-state groups.

Hardly had this chapter closed, the Gujrat killings raised their head on May 14. Ironically, none of the experienced policemen was asked to investigate the matter. In three cases of the Gujrat Saddar police, only one victim's identity was confirmed.

A retired DSP, who had been through several cases of serial killing before, told Dawn on the request of anonymity that this might be the act of some psychopath. He suggested that the investigators should go through record of all serial killers who had used the same modus operandi.

"If the fresh modus operandi doesn't match the way other serial killers had adopted, it means that a new killer is behind the strikes because one serial killer never adopts a different mode of killing while resuming strikes."

The investigators should also contact psychologists to have their version on the killings. He did not rule out the possibility of a foreign hand in the crime.

Two boys, who were recovered from Lalamusa Saddar police area, were later identified as belonging to Shorkot, Jhang. Arsalan, 13, was the son of PAF Shorkot Raffiquie Base assistant warrant officer Muhammad Afzal while the other was identified as Muhammad Asim, 14, whose father Aish Muhammad is a cement dealer in the Shorkot cantonment area.

Their parents got them admitted to a Shorkot's Bilal Colony seminary (Jamia Islamia Darul Quran Daras) where they had been getting religious education for the previous one year. However, on May 11, they went missing from the seminary and were found dead after 11 days.

The parents of both the boys approached area police (Shorkot) to get a case of kidnapping instituted, but the police only mentioned the complaint on the daily register.

The ill-fated families learnt through news report that bodies of two boys had been recovered from Lalamusa. They visited the Saddar police station where they recognized their children through photographs taken by the police before their burial.

Both the bodies were exhumed by the authorities concerned on the request of their parents, who took them to their ancestral graveyards for their burial. The fathers of the victims, who perhaps didn't have any idea of the thana culture and police attitude, were now complainants of the double murder case.

Till the middle of June their repeated requests to probe the case fell on deaf ears after which one of the complainants, Afzal, informed his army high-ups about the indifference of police, a source told this correspondent on the condition of anonymity.

The PAF base wing commander wrote an official letter to the Lalamusa Saddar police on June 19 in which he said the murder of one of their employee's son has created a sense of insecurity among the employees. He asked the police to keep the base posted on investigation proceedings.

Some other sources disclosed that the wing commander and Aish Muhammad, the father of one of the victims, received two anonymous letters giving information through which the mystery of the double murder could be solved, but the police remained in the dark.