LAHORE, July 25: The Organised Crime (Crimes Investigation Agency) police claimed on Wednesday to have arrested five people, believed to be hired assassins, who killed lawyer Nasrullah Warraich and his relative.

Police said the remaining four suspects were currently in Dubai and efforts were on to arrest them by involving Interpol.

Nasrullah Warraich was a senior lawyer and a member of the Punjab Bar Council. Lawyers had observed a country-wide strike to protest his killing while Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken a suo motu notice of the case.

DIG (Investigation) Chaudhry Shafique Ahmad, flanked by the SSP (Investigation) and the SP CIA, told a news conference at his office that suspects Umer Draz, Shahbaz, Zeeshan, Bilal Hussain and Mushtaq had been taken into custody while their accomplices Irfan Hussain, Luqman Hussain, Nosherwan Hussain and Iftikhar Ali Shah were still missing.

He said they killed Mr Warraich at his doorstep in Gulshan Ravi in Jan 2012. The outlaws had earlier killed his relative Kamran Riaz, a murder accused, in Sargodha in October 2011.

He said the police also seized a motorcycle and a weapon used in the murder of Mr Warraich from the accused.

The DIG said during interrogation it was revealed that South Cantonment police registered the murder case of Muhammad Hussain against Kamran Riaz on the complaint of the deceased’s son Irfan Husain in 1995.

To avenge their father’s killing, Irfan and his brothers hired Iftikhar Ali Shah, who was a gunman and right hand of Muhammad Illyas Chothia, an outlaw.

Shah also hired services of two hit men -- Umer Draz of Faisalabad and Mushtaq -- to get Kamran killed. They murdered Kamran in Sargodha.

Advocate Nasrullah Warraich started pursuing the case of Kamran following which Irfan nursed grudge against him.

Irfan gave a photograph of Mr Warraich to Iftikhar Shah, Umer Draz and their accomplices who hired a taxi from Dijkot to reach Lahore and finally killed Warraich at his doorstep near Gulshan-i-Ravi market.