CHAKWAL: “Although I never allowed him to drive a motorbike as he is my only son, I seldom allow him to drive the car as he is learning how to drive,” Mohammad Arif, the father of Talah Bilal, 15, told Dawn.

Talah Bilal asked his father to permit him to take the car on Thursday night as he had to go outside along with his friend Mohammad Abdullah as the latter had to buy medicine for his mother. The father allowed him, thinking that at the dead of night the road would be deserted.

On the same night, constable Mohammad Saqib reached his duty point in Talagang City along with his fellow constable Kashif. Kashif asked the former that he had to go somewhere early in the morning. Thus Saqib let Kashif go and started performing duty on a check point alone.

Meanwhile, Abdullah and Talah were returning home when constable Saqib tried to stop them. “Both friends panicked to see the police constable and they feared that they would land in the police station as they did not have any driving licence”, a police official told Dawn.

”The constable chased him on his motorbike but could not catch them”, an official said. As the car reappeared from another street where the constable was standing, he boarded a cab and chased the boys. After approaching the car, he opened fire on the vehicle from behind with his official SMG. “The bullet hit Abdullah in the back after piercing through the hind screen, passenger seat and front seat”, the official said.

The constable neither himself took the injured Abdullah to hospital nor did he allow people gathered at the scene to take him to hospital.

”Twenty to twenty-five minutes were lost and these very minutes were the precious minutes to save Abdullah’s life,” father of Talah Bilal told Dawn.

Abdullah was taken to the hospital only after a police team reached the spot.

”Talah who witnessed Abdullah bleeding for twenty-five minutes and remained in unlawful custody at police station for four hours is in severe trauma,” Arif said.

Talking to Dawn, DPO Kashif Zulifqar said that both the constables were dismissed from the service.

“Constable Saqib acted in rash and negligence manner as he neither informed his high-ups nor he made any call to the control informing that a vehicle he tried to stop ran away. There was no point in opening fire,” the DPO said.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2026