SIALKOT, Jan 26: Police claimed to have arrested four accused, who according to them, had planned to get their accomplices freed from police custody after making hostage judges and lawyers at courts in Daska on Friday.

Talking to journalists, Sialkot DPO Zubair Nawaz Chattha said the police got information that some accomplices of outlaws, imprisoned in Sialkot district jail in separate cases, wanted to get them released during their appearance before different courts at Daska.

In the first place, he said the Sialkot district and sessions judge had cancelled the appearance of some prisoners before courts at Daska to avert any untoward incident.

He said a special team, led by Sialkot Additional SP Dr Akhtar Abbas and Daska ASP Tanvir Alama Odho, started checking vehicles near Daska. He said the police team intercepted a Pajero (STF-7676), bearing a number plate of the police department, and arrested four accused, who were identified as Muhammad Rafi, Asjad Ali, Ejaz Ahmad and Muhammad Khalil. Two of the accused were wearing police caps.

The DPO said the police also recovered an illicit Kalashnikov, four loaded magazines, a 44-bore rifle, a 30-bore pistol, a pump action gun and cartridges in big quantity from their possession.

He said the three other accused riding in a car managed to escape from the scene.

Mr Chattha claimed that the arrested accused confessed that they were well prepared to get their accomplices freed from police custody upon their arrival at Daska courts from the Sialkot district jail. The accused identified their imprisoned accomplices as Khurram Shehzad, Shafqat Ali, Sarwar, Ansar, Sajjad Ahmad, Mohsin Nawaz, Qamar Ali, Mubbashar Ali, Bahadur Ali and Adnan.

He said the arrested accused had also succeeded in getting a common date on Friday for the appearance of their accomplices in different courts.

According to their plan, the DPO said the accused had to hold hostage judges and lawyers at pistol point to achieve their task.

A case has been registered against the arrested accused.

School: District nazim Akmal Cheema has expressed his dismay over the buildings department’s failure to construct a building to shift a girls school.

The nazim observed this during his visit to the Government Mir Hassan Girls High School at Muhallah Bijli Ghar, a congested locality in the Sialkot city, here, on Friday. The district government planned to shift the school to another nearby suitable place by constructing a new building at a cost of Rs5.47 million after the buildings department had declared it dangerous.

During his visit to the school on Friday, the nazim was told that the department’s construction plan was not workable as it had planned to build three classrooms, a hall and a science lab for over 650 students in the new building.