KARACHI, Aug 7: The investigators in the case of life attempt on the DIG Investigation Wing have been baffled to defend their stance in the court as they have failed to find concrete evidence after the weapon turned out to be licensed.

Police had claimed that the DIG Investigation Zone-1, Manzoor Mughal, narrowly escaped when a man aimed at him with his pistol and shot two bullets in the office of the DIG on July 27. The police claimed that the DIG overpowered the attacker and grabbed the pistol from him. The assailant was arrested and identified subsequently as Bashir Khan, retired as Chief Warrant Officer.

The police registered two FIRs (180/05 and 181/05) against Bashir Khan. A Section-7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act was registered against him in the FIR 180/05 besides sections 452/353/506-B/324 of the PPC. In the other FIR 181/05, an unlicensed pistol (No.A-7127) was shown as recovery from the possession of Bashir Khan.

However, in the first hearing, the sources said that the court did not observe that Section-7 of the ATA could be applied in this case and the suspect was not given to police remand instead he was sent to judicial custody. It was the first setback for the police.

Subsequently, the police suffered a second setback when his family members claimed to have licence copy of the weapon. The family said that Bashir might have licence with him when the police took him into custody, but, they declared the weapon as unlicensed. The family sources said that they would produce the copy before the court in the next hearing. However, the investigators claimed that they did not know about the licence and the weapon was believed to be unlicensed.

According to the licence papers, a 30-bore pistol (A-7127) was issued by the Punjab government in Rawalpindi in the name of Bashir Khan. The area within which the licence is valid is mentioned as the whole country. The family sources said that Bashir did not want to attack the DIG Investigation. The family said that Bashir had fired two shots and the DIG Investigation could not even move from his seat. He just wanted to frighten him and did not intend to kill.

Bashir had been visiting the offices of different police officers for the past seven years to get his money back. He had lodged an FIR 52/2003 in Boating Basin police station, according to which, he had invested Rs700,000 to a company of Yusuf Afridi in Shireen Jinnah Colony. Afridi promised to give Bashir a certain amount as profit but Bashir got neither the profit nor the principal amount back. He lodged a complaint with the police in 1998.

Extremely depressed Bashir had told the investigators that he had decided to attack any officer and then he came to DIG office.