Man buried alive in Pakistan home in search of gold

Lahore: A young Pakistani man, in search of gold that a soothsayer told him a Sikh family had hidden during partition, was buried alive in a 30-feet deep well dug by him in his house. After a 36-hour operation, the rescue agencies found the body of Zeeshan Qureshi, 22, from his small house in Delhi Gate, the old city of Multan district of Punjab, some 350 kilometres from here.

Zeeshan was living along with his parents and two younger sisters in a two-room house. Zeeshan`s father Muhammad Mustafa told police that his son was jobless and the family was hardly making both ends meet. "Some four years ago, a peer (soothsayer) told my son that a gold treasure was hidden in our house. The peer said that a Sikh family before leaving for India during partition in 1947 had hidden the gold after digging it up," he said. "Believing the words of peer, we carefully started the digging about four years ago. Our efforts couldn`t bear the fruit despite digging 15-feet till a year ago. Zeeshan again visited the peer who directed him to continue digging," Mustafa said. For the last three months, Zeeshan had been engaged in the digging day and night and managed to dig 30-feet, he said. "On Saturday, he entered the well but did not return," Mustafa said. Salman Sher, a neighbour, said: "We had informed the police about the mysterious digging by Zeeshan and his father but no attention was paid to our complaint." Police have arrested Mustafa and his wife.