ISLAMABAD: Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who is leading the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah demonstrators camped out at the entrance to the capital, has been booked over the death of a child who passed away after the ambulance taking him to hospital was blocked by protesters.

Mohammad Bilal, a resident of Jinnah Gardens, told Dawn he was taking his eight-month-old son, who was suffering from diarrhea, to a hospital in Islamabad for medical treatment on Wednesday, but their path was blocked by protesters.

He said that he and his wife took the boy to a nearby clinic, where the doctor instructed him to take the child to either Polyclinic or the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

The couple was on their way to hospital when they found the Islamabad Expressway blocked near the Khanna Bridge.

“It took us almost two hours to reach Khanna Bridge,” Bilal said, adding that there was no way to move forward due and the ambulance was stopped by protesters at Faizabad.

Despite a number of requests, he said, the demonstrators did not allow us to proceed to the hospital.

“I managed to take him to another hospital near Khanna, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival,” he said.

He then lodged a complaint over the death of his son with Koral police, who registered a case against the leaders and organisers of the rally on Thursday.

The FIR charged the men under section 322 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with the punishment for Qatal bis sabab, or unintentional murder.

“He was God’s gift to me,” Bilal said, adding that he was willing to forgive the demonstrators if they were really out to safeguard the sanctity of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). “But if they have some other objective, I will proceed against them,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2017