A boy of 16 was beaten to death after visiting a friend in hospital who had been attacked at school a day earlier, his family say.
Shanur Ahmed’s body was found on Tuesday morning, hours after 30 youths armed with baseball bats were seen gathering near a train station.
His grieving family yesterday blasted police after they warned officers on Monday evening – when the student went missing – that he may be in danger.
They believe Shanur was inadvertently caught up in a dispute between two gangs.
Yesterday relatives wept on finding the boy’s glasses and his tissues lying scattered at the scene near a pool of blood – which had yet to be examined by forensics officers.
Police later returned to collect the evidence.
Shanur, an A-level student at Newham Sixth Form College in east London, vanished at 6pm after going to see a friend in hospital who had been attacked.
Shanur Ahmed, 16, was found dead just before 9am yesterday. He had suffered head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene near Gallions Reach Docklands Light Railway station
His worried parents contacted his friends, who said they had seen a message circulating on social media suggesting something had happened to him near a railway station.
His family, who live in Manor Park, east London, drove past Gallions Reach station three times – where a witness had seen the youths with baseball bats.
But tragically, they did not realise the teenager lay dying from head injuries yards away in the scrubland. His uncle Asad Ahmed, 40, said of the message circulating on social media: ‘The information was passed to the police. It may have been couple of inexperienced officers dealing with it at the time.
‘When we found out that he is in danger, he may have been stabbed or is in need of help, the protocol from the police, we understand, is they should have deployed a search party, along with a helicopter. Having come today to the scene where he was lying down, I think a police helicopter would have picked it up straight away.
‘Today, rather than mourning a death of a child, we probably could have saved a life.’
He added: ‘We’re aware there was an altercation at his college, but not with him, there was another child, who was hospitalised.’
Shanur visited the friend at hospital but ‘thereafter we’ve not had any contact with him,’ he said, adding: ‘This was totally out of character for him to be out. We’ve lost a child who was bright, he had a bright future. He had plans to go university. He was a child every mother would want, every parent’s dream child.’
Family speaking to police at the scene where 16-year-old Shanur Ahmed was found dead on Tuesday at Gallions Reach DLR station
Another uncle, Zahed Ahmed, said: ‘My thinking is, it was a gang murder. So you want justice, because my nephew was innocent, totally innocent.’
Scotland Yard said officers were looking at a possible link to the previous attack at school. It is believed that the murder may have been a revenge attack for the school incident.
Two rival gangs armed with baseball bats are thought to have met near the station on Monday evening to settle the dispute.
Detective Chief Inspector Larry Smith said: ‘We need anyone with information to tell us what they know. In particular, we want to speak to anyone who was in the vicinity of Gallions Reach at around 8pm on Monday.’
Police say 16-year-old Shanur was found dead just before 8.40am. He had suffered head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene near Gallions Reach Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station.
Shocked commuter Lucy Farrell, 25, who lives in Docklands, east London, said: ‘I was waiting for the train on my way to the doctor’s when I noticed a DLR cleaner standing in the field with a long item.
‘At first, I thought it might have been dumped rubbish, but when I looked closer I realised it was a body.
Flowers at the scene where 16-year-old Shanur Ahmed was found dead on Tuesday at Gallions Reach DLR station
‘I thought he was in a body bag, but then I saw his hand.
‘It was a young man and he was laying flat, face down in the grass with his hands by his sides.
‘There was a muddy trail as if he had been dragged there.
‘The cleaner was on the phone for a while and she was shaking him, but nothing was happening. I think she must’ve called 999.
‘She was trying to speak to him, but he wasn’t responding.
‘He was wearing all black and he still had his black rucksack on so he might have even been a schoolboy.’
She added: ‘Where he was, you can’t walk through. What was he doing there?
‘I only saw him as I was on the platform above, overlooking the area.
A tissue the family recognised at the scene where 16 year old Shanur Ahmed was found dead
‘It’s just so sad to think of what might have happened to him. He could have been there all night before the cleaner found him in the grass.
‘The police said he was deceased, but they didn’t know what happened. It’s just so sad.’
Shanur’s father wept under an umbrella in the rain as relatives laid flowers at the scene on Wednesday.
Paying tribute to his nephew, Asad Ahmed described Shanur as ‘every parent’s dream child’ who loved games and football, and was looking forward to passing his driving test.
The 40-year-old said it was ‘disgraceful’ for the family to come to the murder scene to find the glasses his nephew was wearing still on the ground.
Mr Ahmed said: ‘He was a child every mother would want, every parent’s dream child.
‘We know they were his glasses because his dad buys everything for him and as soon as we got here, we saw them.
‘Having to come here and see what we are seeing is disgraceful.
Flowers left at the scene where 16-year-old Shanur Ahmed was found dead in London
‘To actually come here and find Shanur’s glasses that he was wearing with blood spatters on the ground is very distressing and disturbing for us as a family.
‘There is also the tissue that he used at home which must have been in his pocket. It is the tissue all the family use and that we are using here today.
‘I spoke with the police officer and he said they had not finished the search. I said it should be cordoned off.
‘How much have the police and forensics actually done to lead to any conviction?
‘From what we understand at the moment, there has been a lack of experience within the police and the protocols may not have been followed.
‘It was reported to me officers might not have been as experienced due to the time it was reported to them.’
Mr Ahmed said Shanur was reported missing on Monday night when his family gave information to the police, from appeals on Snapchat.
Forensic investigators are pictured scouring the scene where 16-year-old Shanur Ahmed was found dead with head injuries in Beckton, east London on Tuesday morning
He said Shanur might have still been alive had the police deployed a search party, but that he was not found until the following morning at around 8.30am.
Mr Ahmed said: ‘They were actually being given leads to say where this child might be. We were getting phone calls to say he might be by the station.
‘Police should have deployed a search party and perhaps a helicopter on Monday night and perhaps at that point, he may still have been alive.
‘At around 6pm or 7pm we understood that Shanur had gone missing but it was only at 10pm that we actually set out to search for him, as that was very out of character for him.
‘We told police we believed he was in this area, after friends put out an appeal on Snapchat.
‘My brother even passed by this train station three times, not knowing Shanur was there.
‘We were passing information to police who said ”we have got enough information, we do not need any more.”
‘The superintendent of the case, the police liasion and the murder team say they were doing everything they can for us.’
Officers (one pictured) were scrambled to the scene at 8.38am yesterday and were forced to close nearby DLR station Gallions Reach until 6pm
Murder Squad detectives are trying to establish if reports of around 30 youths – some armed with potential weapons – spotted near the station on Monday night may be linked to Shanur’s death
But he added: ‘They are not doing everything.
‘Evidence has been left on site at the scene. It has just been treated as another knife crime, another young life that could have possibly been saved.
‘The area was cordoned off yesterday and the station was shut down until the evening.
‘For us to come here and pay our respects at a place where Shanur possibly passed away and find evidence left here is very, very distressing.’
Shahed Ahmed, 44, another uncle, said: ‘The forensics tent was right here, they have already taken it away. Why?
‘Here there is fresh blood, a spanner which could be a murder weapon and my nephew’s glasses.’
Detectives called back to the murder scene by Shanur’s relatives told the family the spanner was examined and deemed to be unconnected.
Referring to the other items found, a member of the investigation team said: ‘We cannot say why they were not taken.’
The teen’s glasses were placed into an evidence bag as Shanur’s relatives watched on in the rain.
Paramedics were first called to reports of an ‘unresponsive male’ found on an area of scrubland, at the rear of Gallions Reach station just before 8.40am yesterday.
Shanur was the second teenager to be murdered in London this year.