A nine-year-old Australian girl is dead and two of her family members are injured after police in Pakistan reportedly mistook their rental car for a getaway vehicle and opened fire. The family, from the Perth suburb of Kewdale, had just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca before visiting a relative in Chakwal, Punjab province, on Wednesday night local time.
According to Pakistani English-language news outlet Dawn, the family was robbed at gunpoint by two men on a motorcycle while in their rental car. When a police officer spotted the robbers, they fled - and so did the family's car. "As the cops saw the vehicle being driven away immediately, they took it as belonging to the robbers and opened indiscriminate fire on the car," a police official told local media, demonstrating a level of deductive reasoning that would make Sherlock Holmes weep.
The girl was pronounced dead at the hospital. Her father and older brother sustained serious injuries; her mother, miraculously, was unharmed. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it is providing consular assistance, with a spokesperson offering "deepest condolences" to the family. Asim Chaudhry, general secretary of the Pakistani Association of Western Australia, told Nine News, "This news is very shocking, especially the death of the nine-year-old. They just came from the pilgrimage." So much for a spiritual recharge.