LAHORE: Haji Dildar vows to keep the battle on unless the killers of his only son are punished by the court of law.

His son was allegedly murdered over a land dispute on May 4, 2014, in Kot Addu and Bilal Khar, son of former Punjab governor Ghulam Mustafa Khar was nominated as main accused in the murder case.

“Sometime I feel I’m fighting a hopeless case,” Dildar says with a blank look in his eyes.

What has made Dildar so hopeless?

This is not the Dildar that this correspondent had spoken to on the day of the murder. That day Dildar had rush of adrenaline; he had seen his son die and also put up resistance to the the most powerful feudal of the area.

Belonging to the ‘Ludhani’ clan, Dildar traditionally worked as a serf to the powerful Khars. He has a small piece of land adjoining the Khars’.

According to the FIR, Bilal Khar’s uncle Murtaza Khar tried to do grab Dildar’s land. When Dildar and members of his family resisted, Murtaza called up his brother, Ghulam Mustafa Khar, for support.

Dildar says he dialed up Mustafa Khar’s number from his cell phone and asked him to forgive them as “we are poor people and cannot stand up against you.”

Within less than an hour of the conversation, he said, Bilal arrived at the scene and shot Amjad Ludhani – Dildar’s only son – at point-blank range, killing him on the spot.

In the aftermath, as expected, the police were reluctant to register an FIR against the suspect but MNA Jamshed Dasti, along with the Ludhanis protested outside Kot Addu police station and got an FIR duly registered against Bilal and Murtaza. Though getting the FIR registered against members of Khar family was a milestone achieved, Diladr says it was an exercise in futility.

Dildar says whenever he went to court or appeared before police for investigation, he was treated as if he was the one who committed the crime. Despite all this, in a last ditch effort, Dildar first had the case shifted from Kot Addu to Dera Ghazi Khan and then to Multan.

The judge even ordered the arrest of Bilal, who is presently absconding, while Murtaza Khar remains on bail.

According to Dildar, “Neither police nor the Punjab government was serious about arresting Bilal.”

Kot Addu DSP Abdul Rehman Asim claims police are after Bilal, and have raided many places in the last six months but in vain. Abdul Rehman Khar, brother of Bilal, says the case is in the court and they accept its verdict. He says they have moved the court to shift the case back to Dera Ghazi Khan from Multan.

Diladar says this dilly dallying will only help the Khars buy time and coerce him into an out-of-court settlement like what happened in Shahzeb murder case of Karachi. Rehman Khar, however, rejected the impression.

Though Dildar rejects possibility of any such deal, a local journalist says the poor man without political influence and lobbying will soon be left high and dry, making the blood money settlement imminent.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2014