No loose change: Bullets in payment for paisas

Two brothers shot dead over paying for gas in coins.

FAISALABAD:

The owner of a CNG station allegedly shot two brothers on Sunday evening after they paid for their gas in coins instead of paper currency.

According to an eyewitness, Chishtian CNG station owner Muhammad Shafique, Asif, Sohail and four other staff members shot brothers Imran and Arshad after they got their bike filled with gas and paid for the gas in coins.

The brothers were accompanied by their nephew Mussadaq, 14, who managed to escape the scene and informed the police of the incident.

“We paid the full amount but we didn’t have paper currency. We each emptied our pockets and paid 300 rupees in coins but they began shooting at us,” he told police. “I was sitting at the end of the bike and managed to run off but my uncles were gunned down by a group of men,” he told police. Mussadaq said that there was no altercation between the station owners and his uncles.

“We didn’t know them, we had just stopped for gas and they were civil until we took out money to pay for the gas. Then suddenly the store owner stormed in and began hurling abuses and firing, he said.

A large crowd gathered at the scene and overpowered the gas station staff.

“I was in the car behind the bike and when the men started firing several of us came back and held them back but by then the two boys were dead,” said eyewitness Amjad.

“We called the police to the scene and I took them to the hospital but the doctors said there was nothing they could do.

They had been shot several times in the chest and head,” he said.

A large group of protesters later stormed the gas station and protested against the staff and owner. The crowd demanded the arrest of the accused and smashed the windows and furniture at the gas pump.

“When we arrived there were tyres on fire and at least 50 people were standing at the station.

They told us what had happened and they had locked the staff inside a small room,” said Ghulam Muhammadabad Police Station House Officer (SHO) Arif Waleed. “Everyone said that the only cause was that the men had paid in coins and this reaction is shocking,” he said.

Police officials said that they had taken the petrol station staff into custody and had registered a case against the accused vide FIR No.919/11 under Section 302, 146,147, 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the deceased men’s brother Amjad Ali.

“My nephew called me to tell me my brothers were dead. When I asked him how it happened he told me it was because they didn’t have paper currency to pay the station hand. I couldn’t believe it,” Ali told police.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2011.