ISLAMABAD:
The Secretariat police, after being besieged by hundreds of students for over 18 hours, finally caved in and arrested a man charged with manslaughter.
The suspect had hit Zaheer Ahmed Lakho, a student of Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), at a check point near Bari Imam while driving a Suzuki Alto (RIA 2607) on Saturday. He was immediately detained by students on the spot and handed over to the Secretariat police, students said. They said the man was Waseem Iqbal, director of NESCOM Hospital.
The student was taken to Shifa International Hospital by fellow students, where he died of injuries. When they returned to Secretariat Police Station to pursue the case, the police had released the suspect after he gave “references of his relatives in army and civil service”, students alleged.
Subsequently, about 300 students camped outside the police station and blocked the road for more than 18 hours, demanding the arrest of the suspect. They dispersed on Sunday evening after receiving multiple assurances that the suspect will be arrested. Their demand was met late on Sunday night.
The Secretariat police said they had registered two separate cases and arrested three men, two police officials and a friend of the accused who had helped him escape from police custody. The three men were identified as Assistant Sub-Inspector Shaukat Abbassi, Head Constable Ateequr Rehman and Pakistan Army Lieutenant Ismail.
A police official said that Iqbal was cooperative and he submitted Rs80,000 as surety fee at Shifa hospital for the student’s treatment. He said that Lakho’s father was informed of his son’s death by Iqbal himself. He escaped only after some of the students went violent on hearing the news of Lakho’s death and tried to attack him at the hospital, the official added. By then, no FIR was registered against him but a police official accompanied him to the hospital, he added.
Some of the students said that if Lakho had received prompt medical treatment his life could have been saved. They said that they first took Lakho to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and then to CDA Hospital, but both refused to admit him, saying that their ventilators were either occupied or malfunctioning.
The student’s father, who was in Lahore at the time, came to collect his body and took it to Sukkur, his home town, for burial. He is likely to return to Islamabad to pursue the case after the funeral.
The students have announced that they will hold funeral prayers in absentia for Lakho on Monday morning (today).
Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2011.
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