All Sahiwal victims shot ‘at very close range’: post mortem report

LAHORE: Post mortem report confirms that all the victims of the Sahiwal tragedy were shot “multiple times at very close range”, while the wound a six-year-old survivor sustained was not inflicted by glass shard but a bullet.

A man, named Khalil, his wife Nabeela, daughter Areeba and driver Zeeshan Javed were killed in the bungled operation by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) on GT Road in Sahiwal on January 19.

Khalil’s son Mohammad Umair and two daughters Muniba and Jaziba were also wounded in the “operation” which triggered nationwide outrage.

The post mortems were performed on the four bodies at the District Headquarters Teaching Hospital, Sahiwal. All the four victims were shot multiple times at a close range,” show the report – a copy of which has been made available to The Express Tribune.

Since they had been shot at a ‘very close range’, the skin of the victims had powder burns on different parts of their bodies, the medics say in the post mortem report. All the victims had also been shot in the head at least once.

Areeba, 13, was shot six times, and had her ribs broken by the impact of the bullets, reads the report. She also shot in both sides of the chest.

According to the report, Nabeela was shot four times, including one time in the head. And her husband Khalil was shot 11 times, including one shot to his head.

The drive Zeeshan, who the CTD later claimed had links with a terrorist group, was shot 13 times, including one shot to the head. The headshot had shattered his skull.

Medics also said that a wound on the hand six-year-old Muniba, which officials earlier claimed was caused by glass shard from the window of the car, was in fact a gunshot wound. The bullet tore through her hand.

A day earlier, Umair Khalil, who was witness to the tragedy, said that the CTD team, after killing his mother, father and driver, had shifted the four siblings to a police van. A few moments later, they separated Areeba from them and pushed her again into the car and opened fire.

Last week, the Punjab government decided to remove the top counter-terrorism police officials after a joint investigation team blamed them in its preliminary report for the killing of the innocent family.

Source: The Express Tribune