GUJRAT, Feb 7 All the 15 victims of Saturday's gruesome gunplay in Sriya village in Kakrali police precincts were laid to rest on Sunday while the police registered a case against 27 suspects, including 17 nominated.
Two of the accused, Pervaiz and Khalid, were arrested by the police.
Earlier, police and local political leaders, including PML-N MNA Jamil Awan, could convince the heirs of only eight victims to allow their autopsies conducted at Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Hospital on Sunday. However, the remaining seven were buried without autopsies after their families resisted the legal process.
The prime suspect, Raja Sagheer, alias Deema, who also heads Dhenda group, is said to be a fugitive and a rival of another alleged outlaw, Raja Aamir, alias Labba, of the same village.
The case has been registered on the complaint of Raja Tahir Anwar, who lost his brother Ishtiaq Anwar and five cousins in the incident besides himself sustaining bullet injuries.
Sources said that some of the victims did not have any direct link with the enmity of both the rival groups. However, the complainant, Tahir Anwar, is said to be a close relative of both the groups and his blaming the Dhenda group in the FIR indicated his sympathies with the Labba group.
Except the members of the complainant's family, the remaining victims were passers-by and some labourers busy in installation of a hand-pump when the assailants opened indiscriminate fire.
Three people, including a goldsmith, Yousaf Zargar, were gunned down by unidentified suspects in Kotla's Main Bazaar on Jan 7 whereas the house of a Pakistan People's Party youth wing leader, Malik Nadeem Aashiq, was damaged owing to a blast around two weeks ago and the Kakrali police could not solve these cases before the Saturday's incident took place.
When this correspondent visited Sriya village, some 40 kilometers away from here on late Saturday night, the complainant and his relatives, who had become enraged on seeing police high-ups and some political figures of the area, decried the police apathy, saying that they had repeatedly been asking the area SHO to let the locals arrange their security on their own but in vain.
