LAHORE: A police constable was gunned down apparently by ‘hired assassins’ in Shahdara area here on Wednesday.

Shahdara Circle DSP Rana Nadeem said the suspects ambushed the car of head constable Rana Ashfaq when he was going to a market along with his two children. They first resorted to aerial firing to disperse the people around, and as soon as Ashfaq’s children left the car in panic, they sprayed a volley of bullets on him.

Posted at the Central Police Office, the constable received more than eight bullets, most of them in the chest, causing his instant death, the DSP said.

The attackers who had come on a motorcycle fled the scene.

The broad daylight murder of the constable alerted the police high-ups as many senior police officers rushed to the site to investigate the matter.

Quoting initial inquiries, the DSP said the police believed that Rana Ashfaq was murdered by the assassins hired by a drug peddler of the area who had a criminal record. A couple of months back, the DSP said, he had scuffled with Ashfaq for creating problems in his drug business.

He had also hurled the constable life threats and gone underground when the police acted for his arrest, the DSP said.

The body of the deceased has been shifted to the city morgue for autopsy.

Girl found dead: The Lytton Road police reportedly recovered the body of a girl from Miani Sahib Graveyard on Wednesday.

The girl, 18-20 years old, was wearing a jeans and a T-shirt.

Some passersby alerted the police who shifted her body to the city morgue for autopsy.

A police official said apparently it seemed that the girl died of excessive use of drugs as no torture marks were found on her body. He said the police made announcements in nearby mosques but nobody reached there for her identity.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2019