Blood feud: Protesters block GT Road for hours after vendetta murder

Ashraf of Billah Butt group was shot dead by unidentified gunmen.

MURIDKE: The family of a man murdered on Monday in Muridke staged a protest demonstration, blocking the GT Road for hours.

Unidentified men shot dead Ashraf Butt of Billah Butt group as he was returning home on his bike after dropping his children at school.

His relatives put the body on the highway and blocked it for traffic. They also fired shots in the air. Hundreds of vehicles travelling towards Gujranwala and Lahore were stuck in the jam.

Some of the protesters also travelled to Lahore and staged a demonstration in front of the Punjab Assembly.

They said that the rival Riasat Kassab group had murdered 13 of their relatives over eight years and that the police had failed to provide them protection.

The traffic remained suspended for nearly three hours. Later, Sheikhupura Investigation SP Rana Mumtaz, CIA DSP Imtiaz Bhalli, Sheikhupura Saddar DSP Malik Tahir Sadiq and Ferozewala DSP Ehsan Elahi talked to the protesters and assured them that action would be taken against the accused. The protesters dispersed then.

The enmity between the Kassab group and Billah Butt group had started on July 13, 2007, when several members of the Butt group allegedly beat up Riasat, a butcher. Brothers Riaz, Akbar, Asghar, Ejaz and Mehmood of the Butt group were murdered over the years. Ashraf, the sixth brother, was shot dead on Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2015.