LAHORE, Nov 17: Racecourse investigation police claim to have taken seven suspects into custody in connection with an armed attack on a doctor and his family on Canal Road in Racecourse police limits in the wee hours of Sunday.

Dr Muhammad Imtiaz of New Officers Colony, Bilal Park, his wife Robina Imtiaz and son Ahsan, besides a police constable, Irshaad Ahmed, had sustained bullet injuries when two armed motorcyclists opened indiscriminate fire on their car on Canal Road.

Sources privy to the investigation told Dawn the suspects, who were hardened criminals and wanted by the police in several robbery incidents, were picked from different city localities.

However, so far the interrogators could not extract any valuable information from the detained suspects about the crime, the sources said.

They said the police were looking into all possible motives of the attack, including personal enmity as well as robbery.

The sources further said the doctor told the police the assailants were apparently robbers who started chasing them after his son ignored their signal to stop the car at Muslim Town Morr.

According to the FIR lodged under sections 324, 394, 353, 186, 427 of the PPC and 7 ATA, Dr Imtaiz was returning to his home along with his wife and two sons on their car after meeting his family friend Dr M I Khalid at Sabzazar Colony when two robbers, riding a bike, tried to stop them at Muslim Town Morr at around 3.45am.

Ahsan, elder son of Dr Imtiaz, ignored their signal and accelerated the vehicle after which the motorcyclists opened fire on them. The family stopped their car in front of a police van after crossing The Mall underpass in an effort to get police help, but the outlaws, who kept chasing them, reached there and opened indiscriminate fire on the car and the police van. After injuring the four people, the assailants fled towards Dharampura.

The injured were rushed to Services Hospital by the police van where condition of Robian Imtiaz, a cousin of additional IG Khawaja Khalid Farooq, is said to be critical.