Cops sent on four-day physical remand

A District Malir judicial magistrate on Wednesday remanded four policemen in the custody of the Counter-Terrorism Department in a case pertaining to the killing of a 19-month-old boy in an alleged exchange of fire between police and robbers.

CTD officials produced the four cops, Khalid, Amjad, Abdul Samad and Peero, before the magistrate to seek their remand for investigations into the firing incident that occurred on April 16 near Safoora Chowrangi in which 19-month-old Ahsan, son of Kashif Shaikh, was hit by a single bullet in his chest and died on the spot.

The family took the child to Memon Medical Complex, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. The four policemen were arrested after the infant’s family claimed that there had been no exchange of fire between the cops and robbers and the cops had fired after they had some dispute among themselves.

The family rejected the claims made by the police, according to which an exchange of fire had taken place between the police and some robbers after the former chased the latter on a tip-off provided by a citizen.

The police had also claimed that they did not shoot the infant as the bullet that hit him had been fired by the robbers. However, Ahsan’s family refuted all such claims and insisted that there had been no robbers nearby. The family said the cops opened straight fire on them while they were sitting in a rickshaw near Khalid Bakery.

An investigation officer (IO) informed the magistrate that the policemen opened fire on each other over a monetary dispute. He said Amjad had fired at Samad but the bullet hit the infant.

The IO sought the suspects’ remand as they needed to be interrogated to ascertain more facts of the case. The magistrate sent the suspects in police custody for four days and sought a progress report from the IO on the next hearing.