Madness: FIR registered against four for killing youth

Two of them are in police custody.

LAHORE: An FIR has been registered against four people accused of beating a 16-year-old boy to death in a street fight in Askari X, North Cantonment police said on Friday. 

Syed Muhammad Murtaza died from a head injury suffered in beating by four boys near a medical store in Askari X on Sunday evening. He was taken to the Combined Military Hospital where he succumbed to the injuries on Wednesday.

Muhammad Mujtaba, the boy’s elder brother, told The Express Tribune that Murtaza’s friend Saif had had a squabble with Humayun Sajjad, Raza Sajjad, Ali Shahjahan and Ameer Abdullah on Saturday evening. He said that Saif and Murtaza had complained about Humayun Sajjad and Raza Sajjad to their father Muhammad Sajjad.

On Sunday, the two brothers called Saif and Murtaza and threatened them. Mujtaba said he heard his brother telling them that he had complained about them to their father.

The fatal beating was recorded by a surveillance camera in front of the medical store. He said Murtaza had been on the phone with his mother asking her about what medicines he was supposed to buy when Humayun Sajjad, Raza Sajjad, Ali Shahjahan and Ameer Abdullah had showed up at the medical store.

Mujtaba said some media houses had wrongly reported that they were fighting over a girl. “This claim is rubbish,” he said. “My brother was only trying to help his friend Saif.”

Mujtaba said his family demanded that justice be done.

North Cantonment Investigation Officer Irshad Ali said on Friday that they had registered an FIR on Mujtaba’s complaint. He said two of the suspects had been taken into custody and were being interrogated.  He said they were still not clear how the fight had started.

The surveillance footage has been making rounds on social media websites.

Investigations SSP Rana Ayyaz Saleem said several police teams had been constituted to arrest the other two boys in the footage. He said they were interrogating the suspects in custody and will solve the case soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2015.