LAHORE – Dozens of people, including women, staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club on Friday against police for their failure to nick the runaway couple who strangled a boy in Gowalmandi area the last month.
The protesters said the police investigators were deliberately delaying raids to arrest the culprits. They also demanded of the chief justice of Pakistan and the Punjab chief minister to take notice of the gruesome killing and order the police to arrest the killer couple.
On December 31 last year, fifteen-year-old Muhammad Bilal was recovered murdered from the residence of the killer couple. According to the FIR, Muhammad Saqib and his wife Pathani Bibi, who were familiar with the deceased’s family, kidnapped Bilal for ransom and later fled away after stashing the dead body in the storeroom of their house situated near the Gowalmandi police station.
The investigation police chief had constituted two special squads to arrest the killers, who had abducted the boy for Rs3 million ransom. But the police were failed to nab the killers yet. “Why the police are not conducting raids to arrest the killers?” questioned Ghulam Sarwar, maternal uncle of the deceased.
According to the victim family, slow response of police provided room to the suspected killers to flee to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A few weeks before the killing, the unfortunate lad had returned from Saudi Arabia where he had performed Haj with his family, according to his relatives.
The suspected killer, along with his wife and two children, had fled to KPK province on a passenger bus after parking his car (LE-2116) near Niazi Bus Stand, police said, adding, the car had been seized. The police said they had arrested the father and two brothers of Saqib in connection with the probe.  Day after the brutal murder, PML-N leader and MNA Hamza Shahbaz had visited the residence of the deceased and met with his parents. He had assured the family of all-out support to bring the culprits to justice.
“We want justice. The killers must be arrested and brought to justice,” said Ghulam Sarwar. He also appealed to the Punjab chief minister to take notice of the lethargic attitude of the police investigators and ensure arrest of the killer couple.