RAWALPINDI: An additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) Tahir Khan Niazi was gunned down by unknown assailants in broad daylight on Wednesday, at his house in Satellite Town.

In addition to other important cases, the judge had been hearing a murder case involving Imtiaz Khokhar alias Taji Khokhar, a brother of the former national assembly deputy speaker Haji Nawaz Khokar. A decision by the court was expected by the end of the month.

According to the police, Mr Niazi’s wife heard the door bell at around 1.30 pm and found a stranger at the door who forced his way inside the house and took mobile phone. Mr Niazi rushed to his wife’s rescue and attempted to overpower the intruder when another man entered the house and shot him, injuring him critically.

The two men fled the scene with a third, waiting outside the house on a motorcycle. They also took Mrs Niazi’s mobile phone.

According to the police, the gunman used a 30-bore pistol and fired two shots, one of which hit the judge.

The injured ADSJ was shifted to Benazir Bhutto Hospital where the doctors could not save him.

City Police Officer Israr Ahmed Abbasi told Dawn that was too early to determine the motive behind the murder but the police would include all possibilities in the investigation, including links to the Taji Khokhar case. “However, we cannot rule out other possibilities including robbery,” he said.

He said three police teams had been constituted to investigate the murder.

When asked about the security provided to the senior judge, the CPO said police guards had been deputed to his security but were not with him at the time of the murder.

Another senior police officer, requesting anonymity, rejected the possibility of this being a targeted killing. He said that of the assailants wanted to murder the ADSJ, they would have come more heavily armed.

In his report to provincial authorities, he said that if the purpose was killing the ADSJ then they would have done it outside his home as no police guards had been provided to him.

The late ADSJ Tahir Niazi will be laid to rest on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the district bar association has announced a three-day long protest against the murder of a senior judge and gave a 48 hour deadline to the police to arrest the culprits.

District Bar Association President G.M Shah said the death of Mr Niazi is a big loss to the bar because he served as a bridge between the bar and the bench.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2015

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