LAHORE, Oct 18: A man shot his paternal uncle and union council nazim dead when he was hearing public complaints at his outhouse in Basti Mian Noor Muhammad of Shahpur Kanjaran locality on Saturday morning, witnesses and police said.

Rivalry was the apparent motive behind the gruesome incident that took place in broad daylight when UC-119 nazim Syed Maqsood Serwer Gilani, 42, was meeting visitors, including women, at his dera adjacent to his house in routine to redress their grievances.

“Syed Saifullah, who lives next door to his paternal uncle Maqsood Gilani, turned up at the outhouse with a gun he had concealed beneath the shawl he was wrapped in, and shot at Gilani, injuring him critically,” said Muhammad Asad, a shopkeeper who witnessed the murder.

Saif then went to his nearby dera, took his motorcycle and fled. His five accomplices also followed him and fled in a car, Asad added.

“Locals shifted the nazim to a car to take him to Jinnah Hospital. In the meantime, a Rescue-1122 ambulance reached there and the victim was shifted to the ambulance which took him to the hospital,” Asad said.

During a visit to the crime scene, Dawn witnessed that the assailant had fired a volley of bullets targeting the nazim and some of the bullets had also hit the wall of the room the victim was sitting in.

A victim’s relative, Nazim Ali Shah, told Dawn that Gilani had no enmity with anyone and even he had not deployed any guard for his security.

A local, seeking anonymity, told Dawn that the victim, who was popular among the masses for his courteous behaviour, had admonished the assailant several times to mend his ways to live peacefully in the locality.

He said the police did not rush to the crime scene despite Rescue-15 was informed soon after the incident. Instead, he said, the police first went to Jinnah Hospital an hour after the incident and later turned up at the crime scene around two hours after the incident.

He said that Saif had trespassed on Shaukat Arain’s house and thrashed him and some women of his family a month ago over a money dispute and was on interim bail in that case.

On Saturday, Saif did not appear before the court that had granted him pre-arrest bail. However, complaint Shaukat went there to pursue his case.

He said that Gilani had contested local government elections for the first time as an independent candidate, however, subsequently, he joined the PML-Q.

Saif, son of Syed Habibullah Gilani, and his family had reportedly developed differences with Maqsood Gilani when he changed loyalty and supported the PML-N after the 2008 general elections while Saif and his family were supporting Gilani’s rivals.He said that Gilani’s paternal uncle, Pir Willayat Shah, was also murdered reportedly by Saif’s forefathers at the doorstep of his house a few years ago.

Chuhng Supervisory Police Officer Mehr Khuda Yar told Dawn that complainant Syed Mehboob Serwer Gilani had lodged the FIR alleging that Saif and his accomplice Khadim Ali had killed his brother over suspicion that the victim (nazim) was backing Shaukat in criminal case lodged by him against Saif.

He said the accused instead of appearing before court and getting his bail confirmed, reached nazim’s outhouse and killed him.

“We are conducting raids to arrest the accused with no breakthrough so far,” he added.

Meanwhile, locals visited nazim’s house in large numbers to mourn his death. Gilani is survived by a widow and four schoolchildren.

The body was handed over to the family after autopsy and was later buried in a local graveyard.