According to police in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, during the investigation into the murder of a 14-year-old boy, the plaintiff has confessed to the authorities.
The murder took place a few days ago in the Liaquatabad area of Lahore when a dacoit robbed the house of a man named Muhammad Saleem and took away cash and other valuables from the house as well as his 14-year-old son Nabil was killed.
Initially, the family believed that the child was killed for some reason during the robbery, but during the investigation of the case, the police came to know that the real motive of the robbery was to kill the child.
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Muhammad Saleem, 35, works as a financier in Lahore while his wife works as a housemaid.
Talking to media, Mohammad Saleem said that he and his wife go to work on a daily basis as usual and they were not at home on the day of the incident.
“We were both informed on the telephone by people in the neighborhood that your son had been killed.
“My 14-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter were at home because the school was closed. When the robbers came home, they sent their daughter out to play. However, when she returned home after a while, she saw her brother’s body and told the neighbors.
When we got home and asked the daughter, she said the brother had gone upstairs to see the parrots. We went upstairs and saw that my son’s throat was cut and there were knife marks under his mouth and under his eyes. My wife and I fainted at the sight. Meanwhile, relatives and neighbors also came and informed the police.
He said that when the police arrived, after inspecting the house, they found out that there was a robbery in the house and the robbers also took cash and other valuables.
They did not know motive behind the incident
According to Mohammad Saleem, when it came to filing a case, the children’s brother-in-law, who was later found guilty, turned himself in to become the plaintiff.
The police asked who the father of the child was, so my cousin ran to them and said that I am the uncle of the child. He is, in fact, a Khalu, but in front of the police, he called himself the uncle of the children and also said that you should file a case under my name (complainant) because the father of this child is very ill and cannot walk.
“I was not conscious at the time because he was like my brothers,” said Saleem. So I said, ‘OK, it’ll take care of everything.’
He further said that when the house was robbed, there were two to one and a half lakh rupees which I had to pay to someone. “Only the couple and the accused knew about it because he was very close to us and we talked to him about everything in our house.”
“At first I thought it was a robbery, but when the police caught the criminals and interrogated them, they found out that the robbery was just an excuse. The real motive of the criminals was to kill my son.
An eight-year-old girl identified the suspects
Muhammad Masood, the IO in the case, told that: “When we arrived at the scene, the body of a child was lying on the roof of the house. After gathering initial information, the girl was given a statement as she was at home at the time.
The girl was scared so she didn’t say anything at first. Some time later, he said that another relative of Saleem’s had come to Tayyab’s house.
According to him, the girl added in her statement that when my brother and I were at home, someone knocked on the door. The brother asked who it was. So the man said, “It’s me Tayyib, open the door.” After which the brother opened the door. When the door opened, he was somebody else, but I saw him! ‘
The investigating officer also said, “Earlier, the children’s Khalu had written in the FIR that when I came to visit my sister at her house, a man named Salman, who belongs to her area, was present on the roof and he cut Nabil’s throat and when I saw him he fled the scene.
When the police checked their records, it was found out that a man named Salman had been involved in thefts before. According to the investigating officer, “We took a picture of her and showed it to the girl, who confirmed that it was the same person who had come home.”
Police raided Salman’s house and arrested him. Upon further investigation, Salman admitted that he was not alone in the incident. He told police that he was accompanied by Tayyab and Qayyum (the victim’s Khalu) and that the operation was carried out at the behest of the plaintiff and the victim’s child Nabil’s Khalu.
Following Salman’s indication, police arrested Nabil’s Khalu and two close relatives and recovered a murder knife, a pistol, and Rs 200,000 in cash, a checkbook, a passport, an identity card, and a “patch kiss” from them.
Why was the child killed?
According to police, during the interrogation, the accused revealed that he had planned to kill his son Nabil in order to grab his sister-in-law’s two-storey house and also lured two of his close relatives.
According to police, accused Qayyum said, “Tayyab is my cousin. So we lured Salman from outside that we would give him thirty to forty thousand for killing the child. I knew that Nabil’s father was a financier and his mother worked in people’s homes and the children were alone at home all day.
The accused confessed that he saw the opportunity and sent Tayyab and Salman to the house of the slain Nabil under the pretext of buying parrots. When he reached home, Tayyab shouted back and went inside to kill Salman.
The investigating officer of the case further said that when Qayyum confessed to the crime, he called the parents of the murdered child to meet the three accused.
Qayyum, meanwhile, told his sister-in-law and brother-in-law that he had planned long ago that he would marry off his son to Saleem’s daughter after killing Saleem’s son, and that all the property would go to him.
