Thirty rupees worth of bananas have led to the deaths of two young men from Kot Radha Kishan, where their funerals were flooded with shocked villagers over the weekend.
Wajid and his brother Rashid, both in their twenties, had traveled to Raiwind, Lahore by bus before planning to head home to their village. They headed to a cluster of fruit sellers to buy bananas near Rohi Nala.
Bananas are Rs130 a dozen but the brothers had only a one-hundred-rupee note and a five-thousand-rupee note. They asked the fruit seller to give them change for the larger note. But when he said he did not have it, the brothers asked him to reduce their number of bananas. A fight broke out.
Wajid and Rashid were badly beaten and the fruit seller called for back-up from some friends, who were playing cricket nearby.
A video of the fight shows Rashid cradling his brother in his lap on the ground, blood streaming down his head, when a young man charges at him and hits him over the head with a cricket bat.
Wajid died on the spot, and Rashid was taken to the hospital. But he did not survive the head injury and died on Monday. His funeral was held the same day.
The police arrested a man identified as Taimur as the cricket-bat-wielding attacker and an FIR has been registered for intentional murder by City Police Station Raiwind under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
Thousands of citizens attended the funeral prayer. Wajid, 22, was unmarried but Rashid leaves behind five children. The police are on the hunt for the other fruit sellers who took part in the fight.
The victims’ families said bystanders filmed the assault instead of helping and appealed for justice.
Locals urged that the case be handed to Punjab’s newly formed Counter Crime Department (CCD) and suggested FIRs against those who filmed the attack instead of helping.
