In mourning: F-10 traders close up shop

General store owner was shot dead on Friday.

ISLAMABAD:

Traders observed a shutter-down strike in F-10 Markaz on Saturday after a departmental store owner in the market was shot dead on Friday night.

Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa, the owner of Step In store in F-10 Markaz, was killed by an unknown person. According to the police, Mustafa was sitting with a friend behind the counter in his shop when he was gunned down. The assailant fled the scene after the incident.

Shalimar Police Station House Officer (SHO) Tanvir Abbasi said a tall mustachioed man, clad in shalwar kameez and believed to be around 30, walked in to the shop at around 8pm.



He purchased a packet of juice and went outside to drink it. He then came back inside, pulled out a pistol,  and opened fire at Mustafa, said Abbasi.

Mustafa’s friend, Sardar Amjad, who was sitting beside him, remained unhurt.

Amjad rushed Mustafa’s body to a private hospital in F-10 but authorities there advised him to take the injured to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) as it was a police case, police informed.

Mustafa was brought to Pims but could not survive the five bullet wounds to his chest. Initial police inquiries point toward personal enmity as a potential motive for the murder, but further investigations are being carried out. A case has been registered against the unknown man by the Shalimar police.



“There was no element of terrorism or theft and the incident was not extortion related either,” the SHO informed.

The store’s employees told police that the alleged killer had been seen shopping in the store during the past month. But there had been no verbal altercation between the man and Mustafa before or on the day of the incident, police said.

“We will trace the attacker. He will not get away,” Abbasi said.

All the shops in F-10 Markaz, including medical stores, were closed in mourning from Friday night through to the time this story was filed on Saturday evening. Traders remembered Mustafa, who had been running the general store for around 25 years, in kind words.

“He was a sophisticated gentleman,” said F-10 Markaz Traders Union Chairman Fayyaz Abbas. “His hard work and professionalism was evident from the fact that he used to sit behind the counter and deal with customers himself.”

Singer Junaid Sami Khan, a regular customer at the store, said Mustafa used to warmly welcome his clients.

“He was down to earth and kind to all his clients, even giving children free candy on many occasions,” Khan said.

Some shopkeepers said police arrived late at the scene but others said Superintendent Police Jamil Hashmi and SHO Abbasi had been cooperative and efficient.

Mustafa, 50, is survived by his wife, a daughter and two sons. The daughter, the eldest of the three children, is only 10 years old.

The police said Mustafa’s body was handed over to his family and they have taken him to his ancestral town near Sialkot for burial.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2013.