FIR against Chechens killed in Quetta to be amended

QUETTA: Amendment to FIR against five Chechens including three women killed in firing opened by security forces and police in Khrotabad Quetta on May 17 is likely as postmortem of the five dead conducted on May 20 has revealed that one of the woman was seven-month pregnant and a dead baby was taken out from her abdomen during autopsy.

A senior official in the Balochistan police told APP on Saturday that postmortem report would cause amendment to the FIR as it had proved that total six Chechens including a baby in her mother's abdomen was also killed which would be taken as murder or forced abortion in legal term.

"Forced abortion is taken as murder of a human under Section C338 of Criminal Law," he said. He said the accused of forced abortion or killing of a baby in his or her mother's abdomen would be awarded one to seven years imprisonment.

Police Surgeon Dr. Baqir Shah along with Dr. Zulfiqar Khoso, Dr. Muhammad Ali and other medical staff conducted postmortem of the Chechen nationals at Bolan Medical College hospital Quetta.

Dr. Shah told media persons that all the five Chechens received bullets from very close range and they died of multiple bullet wounds.

He said one of the three Chechen women was seven-month pregnant who received eight to 10 bullets from very close range. He said a dead baby was also taken out from abdomen of the women.

He said another woman received five bullets adding that papers inscribed with the holy Quran verses and traveling prayers and a currency note of 60 dollar were recovered from that woman's clothes.

He said third Chechen woman received about eight bullets.

One man received one bullet and another two bullets, he added.

He said splinter marks were also found on four bodies except the pregnant women adding that he, however, could not determine the kind and nature of the splinters. He said apparently, all of the five foreigners died of multiple bullet wounds.

Meanwhile, the bodies of the five Chechens were lying at morgue of BMC Quetta after postmortem as hospital administration did not receive orders whether these would be taken to Russian Federation or buried in the provincial capital of southwestern province of Pakistan.

Official sources told reporters that passports of the five Chechen nationals had been dispatched to Russian Embassy in Islamabad on their demand.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011