RAWALPINDI, Nov 17: Unidentified persons set on fire the car of a lawyer who has challenged the extension given to Chief of the Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in the Islamabad High Court.

Earlier in the day, police registered a case over an incident that took place on Nov 14 and which saw Inamur Raheem, the lawyer, being beaten up near the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi.

Mr Rahim insisted that “the attackers were officials of intelligence agencies who don’t want me to pursue the cases relating to the army chief’s extension and missing persons”.

“I am a soldier and such cowardly acts will not stop me from getting justice from the court.”

However, none of the military personnel suspected by the victim in his complaint was nominated in the FIR, which was sealed by the police on Saturday, sources told Dawn.

Police sources said the FIR of the Nov 14 incident was registered only after Saturday’s thrashing of Sohaib Inam, Mr Raheem’s son. Police termed the latest incident an attempt to kidnap Sohaib.

According to Colonel (retd) Inamur Rahim, his son dropped him at the district courts in Rawalpindi on Saturday morning and then went to the shop of a motor mechanic near the headquarters of Strategic Planning Division.

Suddenly some armed men riding motorcycles pulled up  and started thrashing him.

“They set my car on fire after sprinkling a chemical over it. The vehicle turned into ashes within a few minutes,.” Sohaib Inam said.

However, Inamur Raheem’s son, who is studying mechanical engineering at Taxila’s University of Engineering and Technology, escaped without injuries.

The district bar associations of Rawalpindi and Islamabad boycotted court proceedings to express solidarity with Mr Rahim.

The Islamabad High Court will take up the army chief’s extension case on Nov 22.