KARACHI, April 23: Two girls walking back home from school lost their lives when they were struck by bullets near their school in the trans-Lyari area on Wednesday.

Police said the shooting took place when two suspects on a motorcycle tried to rob a boy of Class X of his two-wheeler.

After the incident, enraged people of the area forced shops to close and lit bonfires to disrupt traffic.

Witnesses said an armoured personnel carrier of police was parked just a few yards from the crime scene.

“It was around 12.30pm when classes ended at the Rashid Minhas School in Old Kumharwara. Eight-year-old Sama of Class IV and six-year-old Samra of Class II were walking towards their respective homes when they sustained the fatal bullet wounds,” said a police officer.

Describing the incident, the Eidgah police station officer said that Tanvir alias Hazrat, a Class X student and resident of Kumharwara, was returning home on his motorcycle after appearing in his annual exams. He was intercepted near the school by two motorcyclists, who had been following the boy.

Police quoted eyewitnesses as saying that a scuffle took place between Tanvir and the suspects during which a pistol fell to the ground. Tanvir picked up the pistol and opened fire on the suspects. The bullets hit the girls instead.

“It is yet to be ascertained if the pistol belonged to Tanvir or to the suspects,” the Station Investigation Officer of the Eidgah police station, Ahmed Ali, told Dawn.

However, according to Tanvir’s family, the pistol belonged to the suspects.

Police were not clear if it was a motorcycle or cellphone snatching attempt. The suspects fled without taking any thing from Tanvir, but lost their weapon, if it at all belonged to them, the SIO remarked.“According to the version of Tanvir alias Hazrat, it was a motorcycle snatching bid and during the scuffle the suspects lost their pistol which he used to fire at them, hitting the girls instead,” Saddar SP Dr Aamir Shaikh told Dawn.

However, subsequent investigations suggested that the pistol belonged to Tanvir and he had slipped away. “His escape from the crime scene has turned him into a suspect in the eyes of law,” the SP of Saddar said.

People who took the girls to the Civil Hospital complained of a delayed response by the doctors. “They were not on duty when we reached the emergency department,” said Waheed, one of the men who had brought the victims to hospital in his private vehicle.

The medico-legal officer of the Civil Hospital said that Samra was brought dead while Sama was wounded. A bullet had pierced through her abdomen.

“I pleaded with the crowd to take her to the emergency operation theatre, where she could be operated upon, but they forced the casualty medical officer to refer the victim to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre,” MLO Dr Mehboob Ali said.

Sama couldn’t make it to the JPMC and was pronounced dead on arrival.

The staff at the CHK’s emergency ward was roughed up by the protesting people for what they alleged to be the lethargic attitude of the staff towards the victims.

The crowd also took away Samra’s body without allowing legal formalities to be completed.

Eight-year-old Sama was the only child of Maula Bakhsh and his wife. Families of both victims were in shock.

Both girls were buried in a local graveyard in Lyari on Wednesday night. A large number of area people attended their funeral prayers.

Till the filing of this report, no FIR of the incident was registered. “We are waiting for the family to become the complainant; otherwise police would register a case on behalf of the state,” a police official said.

Area people said an APC parked nearby did not take the injured girls to the hospital when people approached them for help.

The APC head and a head moharrir were suspended and demoted for their negligence, the SP of Saddar said.

Area people complained that police had discontinued snap-checking in the area where the incident took place.