KARACHI, March 28: A 12-year-old boy committed self-immolation in Shah Faisal Colony late Thursday night after he was sodomized by two policemen the same night.

Mohammed Owais, aged 12, an apprentice at a tailoring shop, was returning home in Shah Faisal Colony when he was stopped by two policemen at the colony gate police kiosk.

The policemen subjected the boy to physical search and took him to a solitary spot where they sodomized him.

Owais’s family said when he returned home, he went into the kitchen, doused himself with kerosene and set himself on fire. Injured Owais told his elder brother Mohammed Irfan of his ordeal who took him to Civil Hospital.

Owais died in the burns ward at Civil Hospital on Friday morning.

Sources at the hospital said the boy had suffered 70 per cent burns.

During his funeral, tension prevailed in Shah Faisal Colony and enraged people pelted the police colony gate kiosk with stones.

The town police officer of Shah Faisal Colony said first, protesters besieged Shah Faisal Colony police station. When protesters were told that the culprit policemen were posted at airport police station, they went to airport police station and besieged it.

They dispersed peacefully when the administration assured them that necessary action would be taken against the culprits. Protesters also blocked the main Sharea Faisal for some time.

Owais’s elder brother

Irfan lodged an FIR (39/2003) at Shah Faisal Colony police station.

The police said Owais’s father, Mohammed Ramzan, was a worker of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan.

The police said the policemen, Abdullah and Dildar, who allegedly sodomized the boy, have been arrested. They are constables posted at airport police station.

Sindh Home Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed has condemned the incident.

The minister told Dawn that he had ordered an inquiry into the incident. Investigations would be conducted by an SP investigation. The report would be submitted to him within 2-3 days, the minister said.

He said the culprits would be tried in an anti-terrorism court so that the two suspects got the maximum punishment. Challan of the case would be submitted in the anti-terrorism court within seven days.

ACCIDENT: A teenage boy died in a road accident on Sharea Faisal on Friday.

The police said that Mukhtar Ahmed, aged 17, was run over by a speeding vehicle (T-6232) while walking across Sharea Faisal near the Citibank. He was rushed to Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Centre where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. Mukhtar worked at an office nearby and was going to a mosque to offer Juma prayers when the accident took place.

He was resident of Azizabad.

The police claimed to have arrested the vehicle driver and impounded the vehicle.

KILLED: Bandits shot dead a young man in Saeedabad late Thursday night.

The police said that bandits entered a minibus of route X-10 in Ittehad Town. They began robbing passengers of cash and valuables at gunpoint.

When a passenger, Hayat Shah, aged 31, tried to put up resistance to the bandits, they shot him. They escaped in a waiting car.

Hayat Shah’s body was sent to Civil Hospital for post-mortem.

PRISONER DIES: A prisoner died in Landhi Jail late Thursday night.

The jail police said that Saathiullah, aged 50, suffered a fatal heart attack in the jail on Thursday night.

The body was sent to Civil Hospital for post-mortem.

The police said that Saathiullah was arrested by the Mominabad police in July 2002 in a drug case.