Solemn Sunday: Family looking for missing sons finds bodies in a drain

They blocked GT Road for 10 hours protesting against the police.

LAHORE:

The family of two brothers, who were found dead in a drain in Shahdara Town, placed the bodies on GT Road and held a demonstration on Sunday. They protested against the police for not registering a case and blocked traffic on the road for more than 10 hours.  

Four-year-old Adil and six-year-old Ismail, residents of Pathan Colony went missing on Saturday. Their bodies were recovered from a drain near Jahangir’s Tomb on Sunday.

Shahdara Town police said they had registered a kidnap case against unidentified person(s) on Rana Shakeel, the boys’ father’s, complaint.



Talking to media persons, Shakeel said the police had not registered a case against the kidnapper(s) when the boys had gone missing and had not tried to find his sons.

He said the kidnapper(s) had killed his sons and had thrown them in a drain. He said that he had filed a complaint with police and members of his family and neighbours had scoured the area for the boys but not found them.

Police, however, claimed that initial reports indicated that the boys had drowned in the drain. They had not been kidnapped, they said.

After recovering the bodies, scores of protesters gathered on GT Road. They shouted slogans against the police for not looking for the children earlier and arresting the kidnappers.

GT Road, currently under construction, was blocked for traffic for over ten hours.

Shahdara Circle police arrived at the scene and tried to placate the family members. Eight hours later after the protesters dispersed and traffic resumed.

Police took the bodies to a morgue for an autopsy. They later handed them over to the family.

City Division SP Asad Sarfraz Khan told The Express Tribune that the post-mortem report said that the boys had drowned in the drain. “There is no reason to believe that they had been abducted or murdered,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2015.