ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Saturday has set up a committee to determine those responsible for the death of a 10-year-old Amal Umar who passed away after being hit by a stray bullet allegedly shot by a police officer during an encounter.
The six-member committee includes former Sindh IGP AD Khawaja and the committee will be headed by Justice (r) Khilji Arif Hussain.
The objective of the investigation is to probe the role of police officers involved in the tragic incident, a private hospital and a private ambulance service who reportedly denied emergency treatment and medical aid.
Moreover, the committee will probe whether there was any kind of hindrance or obstruction, following which a report will be compiled and presented to the apex court.
Earlier, in September, CJP Mian Saqib Nisar had taken suo motu notice of the matter days after Amal’s mother Beenish Umer’s account of the incident appeared in media. The suo motu notice concerns the “irresponsible firing” by the police as well as the “failure of [a] well-known medical hospital to provide emergency medical aid as required by the law”.
Notices were sent to the advocate-general, health secretary, inspector-general of police and NMC administrator in this regard. According to them, the family had just been robbed while they were waiting at a signal when they “heard a gunshot and a bullet suddenly hit our windshield”.
“There was a lot of traffic at the signal at the time. The man took my wife’s phone and bag and then told us to roll up the windows and left,” the father had said.
“When I turned, I saw Amal lying in a pool of blood and my other daughter clutching my seat,” Umar had said.
The parents have claimed that the staff at the National Medical Centre (NMC) had refused to help them as it was a “medico-legal case” and asked them to take the child to Jinnah Hospital. They initially did not even help them arrange an ambulance, her mother had added.
“When we asked if we could take the ambu bag along, the NMC staff refused,” she had noted. “My daughter was breathing till we were at NMC.”
By the time an ambulance reached them and they took their daughter to Jinnah Hospital it was too late. Amal had lost the battle for her life by then. The bullet that hit Amal was had been fired by a police officer, using an AK-47, who was trying to kill the mugger on the eve of Independence Day.
The Supreme Court, nevertheless, issued notices to the Advocate General, Secretary of Health, IGP Sindh, and the NMC administrator in this regard.
Karachi has recently seen a rise in street crimes as well as cases of negligence and carelessness that eventually turn into tragedies.
