Lingering feud: Land dispute claims woman, son’s life

Four others injured; the dispute has claimed five lives so far

KALLAR SYEDAN: A woman and her son were shot dead and four others of the same family were injured over a land dispute in a Kallar Syedan village on Saturday, the second day of Eid. 

The incident took place in Jaswala Village, on the outskirts of Kallar Syedan, when a quarrel took place between two rival families.

According to police Zaheer Ashraf, Zameer Ashraf, Naseer Ashraf, Gora, Atiq and Waqas opened indiscriminate fire at their rivals, resulting in the death of Jamila Khatoon and her son, Sajid Mehmood, and bullet injuries to four others.

Later, the police reached the spot took the situation under control and recovered the bodies of the woman and her son from Ashraf’s house.

The four injured identified as Asif Nawaz, Irfan Qaisar, Nabeela Shaheen and Nayyar Sultana, were shifted to district headquarters hospital in Rawalpindi where their condition was stated to be stable.

The doctors, however, said that recovery would take time.

The local police have registered a double-murder case against the six men on the complaint of Mehmood’s father Muhammad Aslam.

Preliminary investigation suggests that the murders are a result of a family feud over land.

Police said that Gulistan Khan had killed his cousin Dr Muhammad Ashraf and his brother, Muhammad Akbar, alias Munshi, in 1998 over a land dispute.

Khan fled to Azad Kashmir and after a few years, the local police arrested him from there and a court sentenced him to death.

After lifting the moratorium on death sentences, Khan was hanged in Adiala Jail this year.

The convict’s family appealed to Dr Ashraf’s family to forgive Khan but they refused.

Last Saturday, when Ashraf and Akbar’s families were visiting their grave to offer fateha, a quarrel began that led to the incident.

Sources told Daily Express that the police had also arrested Naseer and Zaheer from the crime scene along with their weapons.

When the investigation officer Sibtul Hassan was asked to confirm the incident and he arrests, he, however, denied that any arrests had been made.

Aslam said that they had earlier informed the police that they were being threatened. However, the police denied any such complaint was made.

The suspected party, however, said that they fired in self-defence as the other party attacked them inside their house.

The feud that began in 1998 has claimed five lives so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2015.