Kanju was allegedly drunk when his security guards opened fired with automatic guns in a residential area of Cavalry Ground on Wednesday night. Passerby, 16-year-old Zain Rauf, sustained bullet injuries and died. The point to be made is that every criminal must be prosecuted by the full extent of the law. However, the sons and kin of high-powered politicians increasingly find themselves in these tight spots. Scandal upon scandal, he joins the ranks of previous acts of sons breaking out on their own and include the son of the CJ, and the son of former PM Yousaf Raza Gillani. Though all cases are different of course, these young men have been brought up to be insensitive to the plight of the common man. Headlines read “Protocol for privileged killer, bullet for orphan boy”. The stage is already set for a large part of the population to hate and mistrust the political elite and their progeny.
Kanju has not been locked up at a police station. In fact he is staying outside the police station at some place secret, and probably comfortable. Policemen were seen serving meals and soft drinks to the alleged killer who was staying on a bed outside the police station’s lockup on Thursday evening, and an anonymous source from the Police has said that he is being treated to the best of the police’s ability. On the other hand, Lahore SSP (Investigations) Rana Ayaz Saleem denied the reports that the police were providing protocol to the killer.
Kanju was presented in an Anti-Terrorist Court today under extremely tight security. Kanju argued that the fact that he fired shots did not mean they led to Zain's death (odd that the child would die on the spot from bullet injuries then). He claimed he was innocent and that the police and the victim's relatives were conspiring to trap him in the case. How many more of these cases do we have to see, where influential men are given protocol while poor men die in the street?