A nine-year-old boy was shot dead by a security guard for trespassing on a private garden in Ghaziabad police precinct on Sunday.
Muhammad Ali, 9, a resident of Salli Town, was shot in the chest and died at the scene, the police said. The guard, a retired army man by the name of Naseer Ahmed, said that he had fired in the air to try and scare away a group of seven or eight children who were taking fruit from mango and falsa trees in a garden on Ahmad Hassan Road.
After the shooting, witnesses said the guard appeared to panic and was trying to drag the body of the child off the property towards the road. Various bystanders gathered at the scene, grabbed the guard and locked him in a shop until the police arrived.
Professor Jilal Ahmad, a resident of Al-Faisal Town, was at a nearby market when he heard a commotion from the garden, which is located between Salli Town and the Tajpura residential area. He said that the middle-aged guard was caught and roughed up by people who gathered at the scene.
“The guard kept saying that he had not killed the child on purpose. He said that he had fired towards the tree top to scare the children away, not to kill any body. Some people were really angry and started beating him. Then some sane people intervened and called the police,” he said.
Sub Inspector Sadiq, the Ghaziabad station house officer, said that the guard, a retired army man who worked for Dawn Company, was in police custody. He said that Ahmed had admitted firing a bullet from his 0.30 bore pistol.
He had claimed he was trying to carry the child to the hospital when he was caught by bystanders. He said that no first information report had been lodged yet as the parents had not approached the police.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 23rd, 2011.
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