SIALKOT, Aug 31: Police formally arrested on Tuesday their former district chief, Waqar Ahmad Chohan, in a case of lynching of two brothers on Aug 15 in Sialkot.

District Police Officer Bilal Siddique Kamiyana told reporters that Mr Chohan had been arrested under sections 114 (abettor present when offence is committed), 119 (public servant concealing design to commit offence which is his duty to prevent) and 297 (trespassing on burial places) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

He said police would produce him before an anti-terrorism court in Gujranwala on Wednesday to get his physical remand.

According to the FIR, Hafiz Mughees and his brother Muneeb Butt were lynched to death in Buttar village by people who mistook them for robbers. The mob later paraded the bodies on the streets in a trailer and hanged them upside down by a pole, while police officials, including the former DPO, watched the barbaric act as silent spectators. Mr Chohan was put under house arrest on Aug 22.

Meanwhile, Judicial Magistrate Qaisar Husain Mural remanded in custody four police officials in the lynching case and ordered police to reproduce them on Sept 14. Those produced in the court were sub-inspector Shehanshah Bukhari, assistant sub-inspector Muhammad Sarfraz and two constables.