Blood feuds: Murder accused shot dead in courtroom

Killers escape after shooting two in Lahore and three in Gujrat sessions courts.

LAHORE:

Two brothers accused of murder were mowed down by a lone gunman as they came to testify at the Sessions Courts here on Saturday morning, before three other murder accused were gunned down at the Gujrat Sessions Court later the same morning.

In both cases, the killers were said to be avenging other murders. They both escaped.

Zeeshan Butt and Ali Imran Butt, residents of Karim Park, were gunned down in the courtroom of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Haji Ahmed while brothers Pervaiz and Ishtiaq and Pervaiz’s son Mukhtar were killed in Gujrat.

The Butt brothers were about to testify in a pre-arrest bail hearing at 8:00am when they were shot on the rostrum. CCTV footage of the incident showed a man wearing a T-shirt waiting in the courtroom on the right side of the judge in an otherwise empty room when the first case was called at 7:58am.

When the two brothers stood at the rostrum, the assassin pulled out a package and walked up behind them. He looked around the room, then pulled a gun from the package and opened fire.

One brother fell immediately to the ground. The other tried to flee, even after being hit in the hand and back, and managed to exit the room. However, unable to run further, he fell just outside the courtroom of ADSJ Muhammad Saeedullah Mughal. Witnesses said he was later carried outside by comrades where he died.

The CCTV footage showed the killer empty his gun and drop it to the ground. Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Shakeel Ahmed Khokhar said 14 bullets were fired and a 0.9mm gun had been found at the scene. He said that the brothers had been hit in their faces and chests.

When the gunman started firing, the judge lay down on the ground to protect himself. The lawyers representing the defendants and the complainant hid in a small room within the courtroom or lay on the ground. After the shooting, the gunman tossed his gun and raised his hands, apparently expecting to be arrested. However, no police had arrived and he ran towards the exit. There he saw people heading towards the courtroom, so he ran back towards the judge’s retiring room, where the scared judge was trying to go himself. The killer managed to escape through the retiring room.

The courtroom bore three bullet marks, including one inches away from the chair of the court reader. No one apart from the two brothers were reported hurt.

The police officials deployed at the two gates of the Sessions Court, near the Baba Ground and near the Sessions Judge’s building, blamed each other for allowing entrance to an armed man.

Islampura police later arrested Muhammad Iqbal, the official in charge of security, Hawaldar Muhammad Buksh and Muhammad Saleem, the police official guarding AD&SJ Haji Ahmed’s courtroom.

Half an hour after the incident, Sessions Judge Mujahid Mustaqim Ahmed and the deputy inspector general for operations visited the scene. Lawyers and judges boycotted court proceedings. The sessions judge called an emergency meeting of all ADSJs. Capital City Police Officer Ahmed Raza Tahir and Supreme Court Bar Association president Asma Jahangir also met with the sessions judge at his chambers.

Tahir later told reporters that the suspected killer had been identified and would be arrested soon. Asked whether there had been a security lapse, he said there should be a police chowki set up at the courts to protect lawyers and litigants. He said if the Baba Ground was handed over to the police for parking, most of the security issues would be gone.

Zeeshan Butt and Ali Imran Butt were named as accused along with Atti and an unidentified man in an FIR registered at Shadbagh police station under Sections 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of a woman named Rukhsana Nadeem. She accused them of breaking into her house and killing her husband Muhammad Nadeem on May 8. She said in the FIR that they had also killed her brothers-in-law Naveed and Saleem, and cases had been registered against them under Sections 538/6 and 780/6 at Shafiqabad police station.

Also on Saturday morning, three men were shot dead after the hearing of a murder case against them on the first floor of the Gujrat sessions court, said Gujrat District Bar Association president Haji Javed.

He said that Ishtiaq, Pervaiz and Pervaiz’s Mukhtar son were killed as they walked down the stairs. He said that the killer was a man named Ilyas, who was leader of a criminal gang in the region, and he had also shot and seriously injured a constable.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2011.