PESHAWAR: A police official was shot dead and two other persons were injured by an armed man inside the well-guarded building of Judicial Complex, Peshawar on Thursday.

An official said that head constable Hashim Ali was sitting outside the court of a district and sessions judge when an unidentified man, armed with a pistol, opened firing on him.

The policeman and two other persons identified as Abdul Qayum and Zulfiqar were injured in the firing. The injured were rushed to Lady Reading Hospital where the policeman succumbed to his wounds while the two others were under treatment, the official said.

Another policeman of West Cantonment police station said that the attacker disappeared soon after committing the crime. Police guards closed all the exit points to arrest the attacker but he mingled with the people on the court premises and could not be identified, he added.

The official said that four policemen including the head constable had come from Kotwali police station to appear as witnesses in a case in the court when the attacker targeted Hashim Ali. Police recovered the pistol used in the murder.

The investigation officer in his report said that he was inside the courtroom when heard shots and as came out he saw that Hashim Ali was lying in a pool of blood beside a bench on the ground.

The official said that the victim’s family had enmity but his relatives did not nominate anyone in the case.

KIDNAPPER HELD: Police recovered a kidnapped man identified as Sar Taj and arrested a kidnapper in Pabbi, Nowshera.

Sources said that kidnappers had kept the victim in a house located at Khattakabad in the limits of Drab police post, Pabbi and were trying to shift him to Afghanistan to demand ransom for his release.

However, the counter-terrorism department of police got information and raided the house. The kidnapped man was recovered and one of the kidnappers identified as Sehar Gul, a resident of Bara was arrested in the raid, sources said.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2015

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