SHE was nine years old. She had crossed oceans to visit her homeland, to connect with her roots, to see the faces of relatives she may have only known through photographs. Hania Ahmed came to Pakistan with her family — her father Adeel Ahmed, her mother Dr. Sidra Khan, and her brother Aafan — not as strangers, but as children of this soil returning home. She left in a coffin.

On the outskirts of Chakwal, what began as a terrifying armed robbery swiftly transformed into tragedy. As the family was being robbed outside a relative’s home, a police officer witnessed the incident and exchanged fire with the suspects, who fled on a motorcycle. When the Ahmed family drove away in their rental car — shaken, traumatised, desperate for safety — more officers opened fire on them, mistaking them for fleeing criminals.

Hania was pronounced dead at the........

© Pakistan Observer