From robbery to chase to four bullets: How Pakistan police's 'mistaken assessment' killed a 9-year-old Australian girl

What was meant to be a family visit to Pakistan ended in tragedy for nine-year-old Australian girl Hania Ahmed, whose father is now demanding justice after she was killed during a police shooting in Punjab province.According to a report by The Guardian, Hania and her family were visiting relatives in Punjab’s Chakwal when armed robbers confronted them outside their great-uncle Ali Ejaz’s home late on Wednesday night, demanding cash, jewellery and other valuables.Ejaz said Hania’s father, Adeel Ahmed, her mother and her brother, Aafan, pleaded with the robbers, saying, “don’t harm my family”, before agreeing to hand over their belongings.Moments later, the situation spiralled out of control.Shortly before midnight, officers from Punjab Police’s newly formed crime control department (CCD) arrived at the scene. CCTV footage reviewed by The Guardian reportedly showed officers opening fire with machine guns as the robbers and the family attempted to flee.An eyewitness, who requested anonymity, recalled the chaos that followed.“I could see the car speeding and the police officer firing straight at the car,” they said. “Then the two CCD officials stopped a passerby motorbike, sat on it and followed by three or four more police personnel in a car and chased the family car.”Caught in the crossfire, Hania was hit by four bullets and died before reaching hospital. Her father, 39-year-old Adeel Ahmed, was reportedly shot twice but escaped serious injury. Her 11-year-old brother Aafan was also struck twice and is recovering at Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi.The loss has devastated a family that had recently completed the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and was preparing to return home to Australia on Monday.“The incident has shattered the family and people in the area,” Ejaz said, reflecting the grief that has spread through both the local community and relatives abroad.Images of the family’s blood-stained car, riddled with bullet holes, quickly circulated on social media, fuelling outrage over the police response.Punjab Police later said an officer had “mistakenly assessed that the suspects were attempting to flee in the victims’ vehicle and discharged his weapon”. The officer has been suspended, arrested and remanded to judicial custody as authorities promise a “thorough, impartial investigation”.Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also called for a “transparent and proper” investigation.Friends and relatives say Adeel Ahmed remains in shock, struggling to process the death of his daughter. In a recorded message, he said those responsible should be punished “so that this incident does not repeat, and the dangers of the CCD are reduced”.“It was started by the CCD. The thieves did not start the firing first. They only fired in retaliation,” Ahmed said.“There were at least four CCD officials and they should be charged,” he added.CCD chief Sohail Zafar Chatta maintained that the robbers opened fire first, but acknowledged that officers should not have continued shooting without confirming who was inside the fleeing vehicle.“The continuation of firing by CCD officials without positive identification was a grave violation of the CCD rules,” he said. “We have registered a case and the family has expressed trust in the investigation.”The incident has also reignited scrutiny of the CCD, a specialised police unit created last year to tackle serious crime. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has called for a judicial investigation into hundreds of killings linked to the department, alleging it adopted encounter killings “as a matter of policy”.Rejecting the criticism, Chatta said: “We have an extremely polarised political society in the country and that’s because of politics, we are facing criticism.”

For Hania’s family, however, the focus remains on a young life cut short and a search for answers about how a robbery turned into a fatal police shooting.