Déjà vu: Murder accused gets shot on court premises — again

He was also shot at in September; shooter arrested.

ISLAMABAD:

In yet another firing incident at the district courts, a murder accused suffered injuries on Tuesday when a man pretending to be a lawyer opened fire on him as he left the courtroom in police custody.

Rana Sarwat, 50, suffered a shoulder injury from a bullet fired from behind him and was shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), where doctors said his life was out of danger.

The police said the incident took place when the accused was being taken out of a courtroom by police officials after the hearing of a murder case against the accused registered with the Bhara Kahu police in 2001.

“A man in a black coat pulled out a gun and fired upon the accused. However, he was arrested by the police guards present there,” said a police official.

This was the second time that Sarwat has been shot on the courts’ premises. In September this year, he and a police constable suffered injuries while the shooter managed to flee from the scene after abandoning the weapon used. The police were able to collect fingerprints from the gun.

Police suspect that the arrested shooter, Muhammad Iqbal, was most likely the person responsible for the September incident, or that he had knowledge of the shooter’s identity. However, they said investigations were underway to ascertain facts.

“His relation to the murder case is not clear, however, he told some police officials that Sarwat had killed his brother,” said a police official. After the first attempt failed, it is suspected that Iqbal decided to make another attempt on Sarwat’s life.

The under-trial prisoner Rana Sarwat was hit by a bullet in the leg in the September attack on him.

Sarwat was booked in a kidnapping for ransom cum murder case. He along with his accomplices had kidnapped a boy from Lahore and shifted him to Islamabad where they murdered him.

The kidnapping case was registered in Lahore while the murder case (No. 108) was registered in Bhara Kahu police station Islamabad. After the murder, Sarwat had fled to United States of America in 2001. He was pursued by the police and was finally arrested with the help of Interpol, a police official said.

He was indicted in a kidnapping for ransom case registered in Lahore for which he had already completed his sentence; however, he has yet not been sentenced in the murder case, which is still being heard by the Sessions Court.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2011.