Pindi kutchery attack: Lawyer, passer-by killed

Assailants arrested; Advocate Ameer Khan was visiting ATC, when shot .

RAWALPINDI:

Two people, including a lawyer, were gunned down outside the Rawalpindi District Courts on Friday morning in what police believes a targeted attack motivated by personal enmity.

But, for a moment, the shooting also created fear among the lawyers of an assault similar to the brutal March 3 attack on the Islamabad District Courts.

Two of the four armed attackers, who were trying to escape in a car, were injured when police fired back at them. All the four were later arrested. The police hinted there could have been more than four attackers.

According to the police and eyewitnesses, armed men opened fire and killed lawyer Sardar Ameer Khan outside a private entrance to the courts compound on Jehlum Road. The entrance is reserved only for entry of judges and suspects in custody or prisoners being produced in court, lawyers said.

The other person killed in the attack was an unidentified passer-by, Rawalpindi police officials said.

Khan, a candidate for the Punjab Bar Council membership, belonged to Jand Tehsil of Attock district.

The police said he was at the district courts to visit the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for the proceedings of a 2013 murder case in which he was accused of killing Jamiat-i-Ulema Pakistan Noorani’s Attock leader Dawood Mustafai.

Mustafai was shot dead in Domail village in June 2013 over a property dispute. After massive protests by people of Mustafai’s native village, Pind Sultani, the Basal Police Station there had registered a murder case against 17 people including Khan. According to previous reports, Khan and two others fled to Shikarpur in Sindh after the murder.

When Attock police went to arrest them, the suspects and two other men got protective bail from the Sindh High Court. The SHC had also directed them to appear before the Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench.

Khan was given interim bail by the bench and the case was later shifted to the ATC.

Rawalpindi police officials said it was too early to comment whether it was vendetta killing. But they said it appeared to be a targeted attack.

The firing occurred on the Jehlum Road side of the Kutchery, some 100 metres away from the main public entrance to the courts compound. The bullets shattered the windows of two cars parked along the pavement where the lawyer was gunned down. Police were unable to confirm the total number of attackers, but said the assailants arrived in two cars.

Anti-Terrorist Squad personnel posted inside the Kutchery rushed outside when they heard the gunshots and fired back, according to Assistant Sub-Inspector Awais, who is investigating the case.

“The tyres of one car were burst by retaliatory fire by the police,” Awais said. “We seized that car near the Ayub Park and arrested the four attackers in it. Another car got away.”

Two of the attackers suffered bullet injuries on their backs when police shot at them. The attackers had tried to take Khan with them, the police said. The man had died by the time police seized the car, according to the authorities. Khan was shot near the shoulder and chest, according to rescue staff and eyewitnesses. The dead and injured attackers were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital.

Lawyers at the Rawalpindi Kutchery said when they heard the gunshots they immediately feared it was a repeat of the terrorist attack on the F-8 district courts in Islamabad. Lawyers and passers-by ran for cover, most of them running inside the congested courts compound to get a cover.

“The firing was intense and continued for a few minutes,” said one eyewitness Advocate Arsalan. We thought this was a terrorist attack,” said Arsalan. “After a few minutes, police told us that it was all clear outside.”

The lawyers said they were satisfied with the security arrangements at the district courts, which had been heightened since the Islamabad attack. But they said the district courts are located in the busy Kutchery Chowk area so it is difficult to police it.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2014.