Kidnapping, murder: Teen ‘killer’ produced before media

Says he could think of no other way to get rid of the child after he failed to contact the family for ransom.

FAISALABAD:

Police announced on Thursday a teenager responsible for the kidnapping and killing of an eight-year-old child who went missing on August 22 had confessed to the crime.

The mutilated body of the child was recovered from a gunny bag dumped in front of his home in Gobindpura on August 24.

The suspect, 15-year-old Safeer Ali, was arrested by Gulberg police on Saturday. Addressing a press conference, City Police Officer Rae Tahir Hussain said Ali had confessed to killing the child, Ali Haider.

Later, the police produced the suspect before the media where he admitted to having abducted the child. He said he had killed the child because he could not contact the family to demand a ransom.

CPO Hussain earlier said the suspect had told the police that he kidnapped Haider because he belonged to a rich family. “He said he had wanted to ask for Rs15 million ransom,” the CPO said.

The suspect told the police that after he was unable to obtain the family’s telephone numbers, he decided to kill him. Ali is a student of class 9 and had lived in the same street as the child.

Gulberg police said the body of the child was found by a passerby in front of his home early on August 24 morning, two days after he had gone missing. The body had been disposed in a gunny bag.

The child’s grandfather, Mahmoodul Hasan, said the body bore torture marks. He said it appeared that the body had been burnt before putting it in the bag.

A post mortem examination at Allied Hospital on Friday confirmed that the child was tortured before death. The autopsy report stated that Ali was choked to death and body burnt afterwards. The autopsy was carried out by Dr Raja Khurram.

Gulberg police said a woman arrested during raids in the area had led them to the suspect.

They said bloodied clothes of the child were found from her house. On interrogation, the police said, the woman revealed the suspect’s whereabouts in Kot Momin.

Safeer and five others believed to have assisted him in the crime were arrested from Kot Momin by a police team headed by Gulberg deputy superintendent of police Chaudhary Ashiq Jatt and Gulberg police station house officer Ahmad Muneeb Shah. Three of the five accomplices have been identified as Hafiz Zubair, Abdullah and Yasir.

Police said they had registered a case against the suspects on charges of kidnapping-for-ransom and murder. The suspects would be produced before a judge on Monday and physical remand requested, they added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2011.