JHANG: Indiscriminate firing in the vicinity of the residence of Punjab chief minister’s advisor Faisal Hayat Jaboana by unidentified assailants on Tuesday night speaks volumes about the prevailing law and order situation in the district.

Mr Jaboana on Wednesday told a press conference that the incident was an attempt on his life.

However, police sources claimed that the target of the assailants was not Mr Jobana but another resident of the village living in the vicinity of the advisor’s residence.

Traders concerned at law and order in the district

They said the incident was a result of an old enmity over a civil litigation between two parties.

The source said a case had been registered at the Atthara (18) Hazari Police Station and one of the suspects had been arrested.

Jhang is in the grip of an unprecedented crime wave, much to the consternation of traders and commoners. The city circle consists of four police stations.

Sources said that in the last seven months, 323 cases of theft, robbery and dacoity were reported with Kotwali, City and Satellite Town police stations of the city circle. In these hits, valuables worth Rs80 million were taken away involving 800 suspects. The police have yet to arrest even a single suspect as most of the absconding people, nominated in FIRs, have been declared proclaimed offenders.

Sources said that gunmen looted articles worth Rs7m in different strikes in the last week, while one person was also injured for resistance. Also, thieves broke into a shop on Church Road and looted clothes, cash and other valuables worth Rs3.87m in the precincts of Kotwali police.

In another robbery in a sweet shop in Town Committee Bagh, Rs3.5m were looted at gunpoint.

In yet another occurrence, three women struck the house of former municipal councillor Imran and took away prize bonds worth Rs150,000 and 22 tolas of golden jewelry from his Chambeli Market residence. A villager was shot at and injured by two gunmen when he tried to foil a dacoity bid.

Later, the gunmen taking cover of firing fled in a car in the Attowana area of Qadirpur police.

Chaudhry Hakim, Sattelite Town station house officer, told Dawn they were trying to control the crime rate in the circle and had achieved reasonable success in this regard.

He said that the police had recovered looted property worth Rs30 million and arrested several proclaimed offenders. He added they were leaving no stone unturned to apprehend the remaining suspect and recover the looted cash and valuables from them.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2019