5 of a Lahore family killed over property

LAHORE: A property dispute spanning over 11 years resulted in the brutal killings of five members of a family, including three brothers and two teenagers, by their opponents at Phularwan village in Burki police jurisdiction on Tuesday morning.

Following the incident, the families of the five victims plundered the homes of their opponents, set them ablaze and took cattle into the custody. They also protested against police by placing the bodies outside Punjab Assembly and demanded immediate justice. No case was registered till the filing of this report as the situation was still tense in the village.

A senior police officer said Lathia Group and Kothay Wala Group had a land dispute since 2007. Four persons, two from each rival group, were already murdered by each other during the last years. The five people murdered on Tuesday belonged to Kothay Wala Group. The officer said a total of five members of both groups were in jail for these murders.

On the day of the incident, the victims of Kothay Wala Group left their homes at Phularwan village at 5.a.m on a tractor-trolley to bring fodder for their animals from the nearby fields. They were in the midway when the accused persons of Lathia Group heavily armed with sophisticated weapons, hiding in the fields, ambushed the victims. They opened indiscriminate firing leaving all the victims in the pool of blood. After the incident, they fled from the scene.

Hearing the deadly gunshots, the villagers rushed to the crime scene and found the bullet-riddled bodies of five victims. All the victims died on the spot.

The deceased have been identified as Qurban Ali, 50, son of Ghulam Ali, Abdul Rasheed, 45, son of Ghulam Ali, Bashir Ahmad, 32, son of Hakim Ali, Tanveer Ali, 16 and Qadir Ali, 16. Victim Tanveer had recently passed his matriculation examination.

Heavy contingent of police and rescuers responded to the emergency call and cordoned off the crime scene. Forensic experts collected evidences from the spot and recorded the statements of the eye-witnesses.

Panic gripped the villagers of the area. The family members, relatives and people of nearby areas gathered there. They staged a protest against the brutal murders and demanded immediate arrest of the killers. The crime scene turned into a mourning procession as a huge number of relatives of victims, including women, started crying.

Police tried to remove the bodies to morgue. However, victims’ heirs took the bodies to The Mall, placed them outside Punjab Assembly and blocked the road for every kind of traffic.

The mother of victim Tanveer told reporters that the accused persons had committed a grave injustice against her by depriving her of her son. He was too young to be killed in the brutal killings. She said he had passed his matriculation recently and she was much pleased for that. The father of two deceased brothers said that among all victims two were his sons, two nephews and one grandson and lived in the same house.

DIG Operations Shahzad Akbar Rana and other senior police officers approached the protesters on The Mall and convinced them to leave the road after assurances of justice. The protesters allowed police to remove the bodies to morgue.

Afterwards, the protesters went to Zaman Park and staged a sit-in outside the house of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan. They insisted on not leaving the place unless the accused persons were nabbed. The authorities held negotiations with them, on which, they left for their village.

Reaching the village, the victims’ family members turned violent. They attacked the houses of the accused persons and torched them. SSP Investigations Awais Malik said that the tragic incident was triggered by an old enmity. He said that they had formed different teams, including of CIA Wing, to arrest the accused persons. He assured stern police action against killers to ensure justice.

Most of the villagers alleged that the indifference of police towards availability of huge cache of illegal weapons in the village resulted in the big tragedy. They demanded a high level inquiry into the fact why police were not disarming the villagers from illegal weapons. They also suspected the patronage of policemen for the accused group.