Slain Boy Buried as Search for Uncle Continues

A little boy who liked football, basketball and did well at school was buried in a simple Muslim ceremony Saturday while police searched for the boy’s uncle.

As the funeral began in Whittier’s Rose Hills Memorial Park, the remains of 11-year-old Raheed Parwez, whose dismembered body was found in a trash dumpster in Hacienda Heights on Tuesday, lay in an unadorned white coffin before rows of mourners facing the holy city of Mecca.

Many of them muffled sobs as they recited the Muslim call to prayer:

“Allah Akbar! (God is Great!)”

And then, in Arabic: “Peace be with you.”

Several Rush to Help

Although the small coffin needed no more than four pallbearers, more than a dozen of the 100 or so in attendance rushed to help.

Family members broke down several times as the casket was lowered and as mourners stepped forward to pour shovelfuls of dirt into the grave. One relative sat crying, pushing clods of dirt onto the casket with his hands, until other family members gently pulled him away.

“He was a good kid. It is very sad,” said Jameel Ahmad, a friend of the family whose son used to play with Raheed.

Another family friend, Anwer Kahn, explained that Muslim belief holds that the souls of children the age of the slain boy are likely to go to Heaven after death.

“Since the child was minor, we expect and we hope and we pray that he enters Heaven,” Kahn said.

In an afterthought, he added, “We all have to see this day, whether we see it today or tomorrow.”

Search for Uncle

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies continued an intense search for Sattar Ahmad, 27, uncle of the murdered child, who disappeared the day after the discovery of the body of his nephew.

A sheriff’s spokesman said deputies are seeking an arrest warrant for Ahmad and have identified him as a prime suspect.

The boy was strangled before his body was dismembered, deputies said. The body was found in a dumpster at the apartment complex where the uncle lives.