LAHORE - A five-year-old boy was found dead in a mosque after being molested in Green Town area, police sources said Friday.
“The body was hanging from the staircase grill with the boy’s left hand tied to his back, as investigators reached the crime scene,” a police officer said.
On Friday noon, an unidentified man informed the police through phone that the naked body of a boy was hanging from the staircase grill on the upper portion of the mosque - Masjid Baitul Mukarram - located near Behari Chowk. It was learnt that some boys, on their routine duty, were cleaning the mosque before Friday prayers when they witnessed the boy hanging from the staircase grill.
Heavy contingents of police rushed to the spot and the body was moved to the morgue for autopsy. The deceased was identified as five-year-old Moeen, a resident of the same locality. The police are yet to recover the clothes of the child.
“Apparently, it seemed the schoolboy was strangled and hanged with a rope after being molested by unidentified criminals,” SP Ejaz Shafi Dogar told the reporters outside the mosque.
A local resident Muhammad Mushtaq said that Moeen along with other children was busy in collecting donations, a common practice ahead of Eid Miladun Nabi celebrations, in the low-income neighbourhood when he disappeared mysteriously.
“At about 5:20pm on Thursday, I saw some boys were collecting donations in the street. Moeen was among them,” Mushtaq pointed out.
Locals say they believe the boy was abducted during the hour of power loadshedding, at about 6:00pm.
A painter by profession, Muhammad Yaseen, told the police that the mosque, from where the body of his son was recovered, located a few hundred meters away from his house.
Poverty-stricken Yaseen lives in a one-room rented house along with his wife and nine other children. Moeen was at 6th number among his siblings.
Ironically, the Green Town police did not take any action when the poor father reached the police station and told the on-duty officers that his son had gone missing.
“The police did not take the case seriously. We were asked to search the boy in the colony on our own,” the poor father said while tears in his eyes.
Announcements were made on the loudspeaker of the same mosque to find the child. Investigators said that the killer had the information that the parents were desperately searching for the boy. “We believe that the killer hanged the boy fearing his identification,” an investigator said.
“What has happened to me, I wanted to set the whole city on fire,” said the boy’s father. On Friday, the Green Town police, in order to save their skin, registered a kidnapping case under section 363 of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified men. Later, the police added murder section in the First Information Report.
“It was quite terrible. I have never seen such a brutality in 15 years of my career,” a press photographer commented after visiting the crime scene.
Police sources revealed that two suspects including the Moazzan of the mosque have been taken into custody and are being interrogated.
However, the police officially denied any arrest and said that investigations were underway to unearth the killers.
The mother of boy lost her mind after witnessing the body of her son. The ill-fated mother was seen desperately kissing the face of her child as the body was taken to the house from the mosque. Later on, it was moved to the morgue.
Following the media reports, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif did what he does the best - took the notice of the issue. The CM also sought report from the top cop whose ‘brilliant’ team had already refused the boy’s father of any help, asking what they could do to find his son.
According to an official handout, the chief minister also ordered the police to arrest the criminals and justice should be ensured at any cost.
It may not be out of context to mention here that after the killings of 133 children in an army-run school in Peshawar, authorities have been stepping towards establishing military courts and scrutinising seminaries involved in terrorism or linked to militants one way or another.