SAHIWAL: Two brothers and a lawyer’s assistant were killed on the premises of District Courts, Pakpattan, on Monday.

Two brothers, Ibrahim Malkana and Ifrahim Malkana, were nominated in multiple murder and robbery cases. They arrived in the district courts for hearing of their ‘interim bail’ in one of murder cases when four unidentified assailants attacked them.

Eyewitnesses said the assailants opened fire on Malkana brothers. Ibrahim was killed on the spot while Ifrahim received a shot in his foot and took shelter in the chamber of one Advocate Shaukat Wattoo. The attackers followed him and opened indiscriminate fire on him in the chamber where Shaukat’s assistant Yousaf Bhatti was present. Both Ifrahim and Bhatti were killed in the firing. The assailants escaped from the court premises while firing in the air.

The lawyers and their clients had taken shelter when the firing started. All this happened in about five to 10 minutes time.

Rescue 1122 shifted the bodies to the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital, Pakpattan.

The police said the bodies were handed over to the families after autopsy. No first information report had been registered with the police station concerned when this report was filed.

The police said that both the brothers were allegedly involved in extortion too besides the murder and robbery incidents and they were killed by their rivals.

The bar associations of Pakpattan, Chichawatni and Sahiwal condemned the incident and murder of Yousaf Bhatti, the assistant of their colleague. They demanded the Lahore High Court chief justice to take notice of the incident.

NOTICE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim Khan on Monday took notice of killing of two murder suspects and a clerk of a lawyer at Pakpattan district courts.

The chief justice directed the Pakpattan district and sessions judge to submit a report on the incident within 24 hours. He also ordered the Punjab inspector general of police to complete investigation at the earliest and arrest the culprits.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2019