O-level student’s death: Four witnesses join police investigation

LAHORE: Four of the five boys present at a party on December 20 where Muhammad Mahid Bin Faisal, an O-level student at Aitchison College, suffered a fatal bullet wound have recorded their statements with the North Cantonment police.

Waleed Sherpao, who is said to have accidently pulled the trigger of the gun, has yet to contact the police to record his account of the incident.

Inspector Zahid Khan, in charge of investigation, told The Express Tribune that according to the FIR, Saeed Hassan, Muhammad Haider Sultan, Shah Mir Amjad and Muhammad Sahil, along with Waleed Sherpao, a grandson of Aftab Ahmed Sherpao,  were present at the party.

In their statements, he said, the four friends told the police that Waleed was playing with the pistol, pointing it towards Mahid, when it went off.

They said that Mahid and Sherpao were class fellows at the Aitchison College and were good friends.

“They did not have anything against each other. It was an accident,” he said, referring to the eyewitnesses’ statements.

Inspector Khan said that the police had seized the pistol.

The 0.30-bore pistol is licensed in the name of Shehzad Khan, an uncle of Muhammad Zaman Mohiuddin Khan, at whose residence the incident took place. Shehzad Khan was abroad when the incident took place. Inspector Khan said that the boys expressed ignorance about the whereabouts of Waleed Sherpao. He said the police expected Waleed to cooperate with them in the investigations.

“I hope he will show up at the police station and answer questions,” he said, adding that he did not expect him to risk his academic career by ‘disappearing’.

Station House Officer Rana Arham said that there seemed to be no enmity between Waleed and Faisal.

He said that the eyewitnesses had stated that before the gun, Zaman Mohiuddin had shown them the family swords. They told the police that no one in the room knew that the gun was loaded.

SHO Arham said the police could not nominate a suspect on their own at this stage. The family of the deceased, he said, had not nominated anyone in the murder. He dismissed the suggestion that the complainant could be under pressure from the Sherpao family. The FIR (No 1581/10) registered with the North Cantonment police station under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code does not nominate a suspect.

Faisalur Rehman, father of the deceased who is the complainant in the case, says in the FIR that somebody had killed his son on December 20.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2010.