Police fail to arrest PSF

Feb 1, 2009


The Hanjerwal Police have failed to arrest People's Students Federation (PSF) Lahore President Razi Shah Zaidi, accused of killing his own colleague, Usama Ilyas, on Monday night.Over 100 friends and class fellows of Ilyas, also a PSF leader, staged a protest demonstration in front of the Punjab University (PU) vice chancellor's Office on Tuesday, demanding the immediate arrest of the killers. Later, the students reached the Lahore Press Club and staged another demonstration.Hassan, a PU student, said Razi and Ilyas were friends and even Razi selected him (Ilyas) as the PSF general secretary. He expressed his inability to figure out the reasons behind the murder. Punjab PSF General Secretary Zuhaib said the family of the nominated accused could be of the view that the death was accidental, but the organisation did not think the same. He said the incident seemed to be due to their personal affairs.According to the victim's relatives, no one exactly knew the reasons. They said Ilyas would invite Razi and his friends and they would sit in the drawing room for talks.On one such occasion, they heard Ilyas and Razi exchanging harsh words and then a gunshot. When they rushed to the drawing room, the guests had left and Ilyas was found critically injured.Inspector Iftikhar of the Hanjerwal police, who is investigating the case, said the police were raiding several places to arrest the accused.He said investigations would move forward after the arrest of the accused. The accused could give a better account of the details of the incident. The deceased was laid to rest at a local graveyard on Tuesday afternoon.