Boy shot dead by a security guard after he mistook him for a ghost’

A security guard thought a ‘ghost’ was riding a bike, so he opened fire with his shotgun killing an 11-year-old rider.

Shops seen closed at Tariq road market in Mawach Goth, in Karachi (Picture: Alamy)

The young boy had been bought a Halloween-style scary mask by his dad and like most kids with a new toy, he never put it down.

But on Sunday, the guard at a housing project in Pakistan claimed he was spooked and shot the child.
Ali Hassan Shaikh died from gunshot wounds in Bahadurabad. Local paper the Express Tribune reports Ali was cycling inside Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung Housing Society with the mask on when the accused guard ‘mistook him for a ghost’ and opened fire.

Ali’s father Shaukat Shaikh said: ‘We do not want anything from the government or anyone else.
‘We just want justice as this man killed my innocent son without any reason.’

He added: ‘Someone knocked on our door and I thought Ali had come back from playing. But then he shouted that Ali has been killed. I ran out of the bungalow and found my son lying in a pool of blood.’

At the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, joint executive director Dr Seemin Jamali said: ‘He was not shot at point-blank range but was shot from a distance, with multiple pellets of the shotgun hitting the upper part of his neck from behind, killing him on the spot.”

The police at Ferozabad arrested the security guard named as Ghulam Nabi who works for a private security company.

The newspaper was able to quiz the guard at the police station, and he told them: ‘He [Ali] scared me. Ghosts and evil spirits are very common in our village. I thought a ghost had attacked me. I became scared and accidently shot him. I had no idea what I was doing.”

Investigators have charged him with murder. ‘The post-mortem report suggests the guard acted deliberately as he shot the boy from the back at a distance,’ inquiry officer Sohail Khan said.

‘Everyone in the society knew what the boy was up to [running around in a mask] for several days, so how is it possible that the guard thought he was a ghost?’ the officer suggested, before confirming the accused had been handed over to the investigations wing for further questioning.

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