At least five members of a family including two real brothers and two teenage boys were brutally murdered over old enmity in Barki area on Tuesday morning, police officials said. The deceased were identified as Qurban Ali (50), Abdul Rasheed (45), Bashir Ahmad (32), Tanveer Ali, (16) and Qadir Ali (16). Police said Tanveer had recently passed his matriculation examination.
After hearing the gun-shots, villagers rushed to the spot and found the victims died with fatal bullet injuries.
According to police officials, the enmity started in 2007 between Lathia and Kothi Wala clans over a land dispute which has claimed 12 lives till date. Some five members belonging to both the groups are in jail for these murders.
The accused party heavily armed with sophisticated weapons attacked the victims while they were going to their home and opened indiscriminate firing, leaving all of them dead.
After getting information of the incident, a heavy contingent of police and rescuers reached the spot and cordoned off the area. They also collected forensic evidences from the crime scene and recorded statements of eye witnesses.
The family members and relatives of the victims besides the villages gathered there soon after the incident, staged a protest and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.
When police tried to remove the dead bodies to a morgue for autopsy, the heirs of the victims resisted and took the bodies to Mall Road. They placed them outside the Punjab Assembly and chanted slogans against police officials and demanded immediate justice.
DIG Operations Shahzad Akbar Rana and other senior police officers approached the protestors and assured them of arresting the killers. Meanwhile, the protestors allowed police to remove the bodies to morgue for autopsy.
Later, the protestors went to Zaman Park and staged a sit-in outside the house of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan. They pleaded not to leave unless the accused persons are arrested. The authorities held negotiations with them on which the protestors left for their village.
SSP Investigations Awais Malik said he has constituted a team comprising officials of the CIA for arresting the accused.
He assured stern police action against the accused. After reaching the village, the victim family members went with berserk. They attacked houses of the accused persons and set them on fire.