An aggrieved family has alleged that the Ratta police were refusing to nominate a man in a murder case.
Hakeem Khan, 65, was shot and killed by a stray bullet shot by a man at a third person who escaped unhurt. The incident took place in Dhoke Ratta on November 25, in the limits of the Ratta Police Station.
The police had registered an FIR against an unknown person, as the family had failed to identify or the shooter.
Hakeem, who hailed from Attock and had come to Dhoke Ratta to attend the funeral of his brother-in-law, fell victim to an enmity between two families. According to reports, as soon as Hakeem came out of his sister’s house, two men on motorcycles showed up there and one of them opened fire on the other. The bullet missed the target and hit Hakeem, killing him on the spot.
The same day, on a complaint of the deceased’s relatives, the Ratta police registered a blind murder case.
Hakeem’s family later learnt that the man who had opened fire was Adnan Butt, and his intended target was a man with whom his sister had eloped. Two eyewitnesses corroborated this version of events.
When the deceased’s son, Waheed Khan, approached the Ratta police to nominate Butt in the FIR, they allegedly refused, saying
they were investigating the case.
“The police are treating the case as if nothing has happened,” Khan said, adding that when the family asked the police to nominate Butt in the FIR, they snubbed them only saying “investigation is going on” and asking them to wait.
Waheed told The Express Tribune that the killer has been threatening him with dire consequences if he continues to pursue the case.
“He has bribed the police,” Khan claimed.
Investigation Officer Malik Allah Yar denied the allegations saying he was busy in other cases in the last few weeks.
“I know this is a murder case. I will nominate the killer and arrest him at the earliest,” he claimed.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2013.