Lahore: A provincial minister on Tuesday said that five police officers have been charged with murder after a probe into a weekend shootout concluded that three people were wrongly killed in a botched operation on a highway.
At a news conference, Raja Bisharat said that four police officers were also charged with mismanaging Saturday's raid in the south-west of Lahore on a car that left four civilians dead in Sahiwal.
The shootout on Saturday drew nationwide condemnation after police killed grocery store owner Mohammad Khalil, his wife and his teenage daughter.
Counter terror forces had earlier claimed that they had killed four “terrorists” linked to the Islamic State group in an "intelligence-based operation" on Saturday.
However, a video testimony of Mohammad Khalil’s nine-year-old son – Umair Khalil exposed the police cover-up. In the video Khalil said that his family were stopped at a police toll booth as they were driving to a family member’s wedding.
"My father told them to take our money and not to shoot their guns. But they started firing," Umair said in the video.
A police probe was ordered following national outrage over the video. Soon after, authorities revealed that the slain were unarmed and Khalil's three surviving children — who witnessed the killings — are still traumatized.
The investigation into the death of a fourth person, a man, is still ongoing, although witnesses say police killed the four in cold blood despite seeing children in the car.
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