December 6, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1424

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GUJRAT, Dec 5: A man and his two young sons, who were settled in the UK, were shot dead by some unidentified assailants one of whom also died during blind firing of his accomplices near a bakery on the GT Road in Lalamusa, on Friday.

The motive behind the killings could not be known immediately, as the family denied any enmity.

Eye-witnesses said Chaudhry Munawar Dhola and his two sons — Ghulam Hur Dhola and Qasim Dhola — were standing near their car (LHM-9584) when some assailants came there in two cars and a Pajero. As many as 10 men stepped down from the vehicles and sprayed bullets on the three men. Munawar and his elder son, Hur, died instantly while his younger son suffered grievous injuries, they added.

One of the attackers, who was later identified as Mukhtar (a resident of Peru Shah village) also suffered bullet wounds in the firing of his companions, who escaped in their vehicles towards Gujrat. Police shifted the two injured to the Lalamusa Village Aid Hospital where Qasim succumbed to his wounds without any treatment while Mukhtar was referred to the DHQ Hospital due to his precarious condition. He breathed his last after few hours.

The city police sent the four bodies to the Kharian THQ Hospital for autopsy and handed over three of those to the Dhola’s family.

Family sources said Qasim was to return to the UK on Friday night and his father and elder brother had planned to see him off at airport. “They were about to move from outside American Bakers where Qasim had come to meet some of his friends,” they added.

A family source told this correspondent that the building of the bakery was owned by the Dhola family and a flat on the first floor was in temporary use of Qasim. The slain Munawar Dhola was an old Muslim Leaguer, who is survived by a son, Chaudhry Yasir Dhola. No case was registered till filing of this report in the evening.

Lalamusa city police, when contacted by this correspondent, claimed that no member of the family had submitted a written application for the registration of a case.

OUTLAW KILLED: The district police claimed on Friday to have shot dead a notorious criminal and arrested his accomplice after an encounter near Shah Daula’s shrine.

A police spokesman said Wazirabad police was tipped off about the presence of their two wanted men at the outhouse of Asad on the Shah Daula Road. A police party of Gujrat and Wazirabad stations, led by the latter’s SHO Liaquat Goraya, raided the hideout and asked the suspects to surrender. However, the outlaws opened fire on police, which was returned. The crossfire, which continued for more than three hours, left a criminal dead. His accomplice, Shabbir, surrendered.

The deceased was later identified as Ghulam Abbas alias Basu. The police recovered a kalashnikov, rifle and a pistol, besides, hundreds of cartridges from the site of encounter.

They claimed that the two men were wanted by Gujranwala and Sialkot police in a number of cases.