Faisalabad incident: Punjab police arrest 5 suspects

ISLAMABAD: Punjab police on Wednesday arrested five suspects allegedly involved in killing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) activist Haq Nawaz during Monday’s riots in Faisalabad.

The suspects had been rounded up from various parts of the city, including Sir Syed Town, Madini Chowk of Samanabad, Totiwala chowk. All of these areas are within the constituency of former Law Minister Rana Sanaullah.

The suspects were shifted to an undisclosed location for questioning and to help trace the other accused, especially the shooter whose identity has become controversial and mysterious following his sudden disappearance from the city. The Punjab government has already announced a reward of Rs5 million for information leading to his arrest.

The police, however, was reluctant to disclose the identities of the suspects it had taken into custody. But City Police Officer (CPO) Faisalabad Dr Sohail Habib Tajik did confirm the arrests.

“All those who have been taken into custody were identified from various footages of the incident in which some people were seen firing, also the people seen very close to them have been arrested, but the main suspect who was firing has yet to be identified and arrested,” Tajik told The Express Tribune.

“We are hoping for a breakthrough from the suspects taken into custody to reach the real accused involved in killing Nawaz although they were nominated in the FIR by the complainant and they were not big shots,” he said.

A case under sections 302.148,149, 324 and 7 ATA has been registered by the Samanabad Police on the complaint of Nawaz's brother, Attaullah Khan. The FIR nominated State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali, Former Law Minister Sanaullah, his son in law Sheharyar Khan, DCO Noorul Amin Mengal, MPA Mian Tahir Jameel, Nadeem Mughal, Imtiaz, Arshad Siddiqui, Syed Muntsrar and 300 others.