School boy drowning case: Court orders formation of JIT

Investigators given one month to submit report

HYDERABAD: As the parents of 11-year-old Inder Vanit, whose death in a swimming pool remains a controversy, continue to fight for justice for their son, the Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered on Wednesday a high-level probe into the matter.

The court directed the provincial government to constitute a joint investigation team (JIT), giving a month to the investigators from the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to submit a report.

Vanit, the only child of Dr Chetan Das Hotwani, drowned in a swimming pool of the Hyderabad Club on April 13. He was declared dead nine days later at a hospital in Karachi where he was kept on a ventilator. On May 2, an FIR under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) was registered on the complaint of Vanit's father at GOR police station against unknown persons.

The parents alleged that their son was raped and murdered. However, the club's administration claimed the new swimmer drowned.

"While looking into the circumstances of the case, judicious propriety demands constitution of [a] JIT," the order read.

After the additional advocate-general sought time from the court to form the JIT, SHC gave the government three weeks for constituting the team, followed by one month for completing the investigation.

Dr Hotwani accused the club's administration of hiding the closed-circuit camera television footage of that day. He had plead that the club's administrator Mushtaq Ahmed and computer operator Umair Shoro should also booked under Section 201 of the PPC.

Earlier, the police arrested two lifeguards, Sajjad Parehar and Nadir Parehar, in connection with the case. An inquiry conducted by an officer of Special Branch Karachi, Sirajjuddin Lashari, requested the court to replace Section 302 (intentional murder) with Section 319 (unintentional murder) in the FIR.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2016.