Accountant general’s office: Employees accuse senior officials of union leader’s murder

Block The Mall for 2 hours to force police to register case against AG.

LAHORE:

A case has been registered against the Punjab accountant general (AG) and additional accountant general (AAG) over the murder on Thursday of an assistant accounts officer who led the office union in recent protests.

Some 400 employees marched from the accountant general’s office to GPO Chowk on Thursday morning and blocked The Mall for two hours to demand police action against AG Chaudhry Muhammad Aslam and AAG Kamal Siddiq.

Islampura police later registered a case under Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (conspiracy) of the Pakistan Penal Code against two unidentified men and under Section 109 (abetment) against the AG and AAG, on the complaint of Muhammad Awais, the son of the deceased. Police said that Bakhsh Elahi, 59, an assistant accounts officer in grade 16, was chased on his way to work by two men on a Honda 125 motorbike. They fired three shots at him near the Shell petrol station on Outfall Road. One bullet went through his arm and into his chest. He was rushed to Mayo Hospital, where he died due to blood loss.

Muzaffar Kamboh, the general secretary of the union, said that Elahi had told him in hospital as he lay dying that the AG and AAG were behind the attack. He said Siddiq had made threatening phone calls to Elahi, one of which Elahi had recorded. Elahi had also received an anonymous call 20 days ago warning him that senior officials were plotting to kill him, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2012.