LAHORE: Two suspects, who had allegedly tortured to death two brothers over a Rs30 dispute at Raiwind some days back, were killed in ‘firing by their own accomplices’ during an ‘encounter’ with the Crime Control Department (CCD) team here on Thursday.

Identified as Awais and Shahzad, the suspects were fruit sellers and they were arrested by the CCD in the murder case of young milk sellers Wajid and his brother Rashid. The incident of torturing and killing them by the two suspects had gone viral on social media.

The video clip captured one of the suspects hitting a cricket bat on the head of Wajid at a time when he was holding his dying brother in a pool of blood.

The most irritating part of the incident was that dozens of people were standing around the victims just as silent spectators, as none of them tried to save the lives of the helpless youngsters. These onlookers were also criticised on the social media.

An official said the CCD police had arrested the murder suspects and on Thursday and they were taking them for the purpose of recovery in the murder case of the milk seller brothers in the area of Raiwind.

Repeating the ‘template’, he said, suddenly the accomplices of the murder suspects attacked the police party and opened indiscriminate firing.

The official claimed that the police returned the fire which led to an armed encounter between the two sides.

As the guns went silent, the police found the two murder suspects in the custody of the CCD killed ‘by the firing of their own accomplices’ who fled the scene soon after the armed attack, he said.

The official said a search operation was launched in the nearby localities to trace and arrest the fleeing armed men.

To a question, he said the Raiwind city police had registered murder case of the two brothers on the complaint of their father Saeed Iqbal, who was a resident of Kot Radha Kishan Road, Kasur.

He had also nominated Taimoor (the brother of Awais who was killed in the encounter along with Shahzad on Thursday) and some other suspects.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2025