From Abid Usman
LAHORE: Special Branch Police claimed to have arrested three armed men from the parking lot of the Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Monday.
According to security officials posted at the ATC, the three suspects were waiting in a car in the parking area for as of yet undetermined reasons, from where they were arrested by police personnel. The suspects were identified as Mohammad Amin, Mohammad Shahbaz and Mohammad Naeem and handed over to the Race Course Police Station by the Special Branch officers.
Two pistols and four fully loaded magazines were found in their possession according to the security officials.
Police officials said the FIR hadn’t been registered yet and that the suspects were being interrogated to ascertain the reason for their presence at the court premises. Last week, police had arrested seven men who were carrying a large cache of weapons outside the district and sessions court next to Baba Ground in Lahore. A spokesperson for the Lahore police had said in a statement that five rifles, five pistols and 700 bullets were seized from the seven men. There have been several incidents of shootings inside courtrooms in Lahore and elsewhere during the last year.
In November 2020, police arrested a gunman after he shot two brothers dead inside the “bakhshi khana”, a lockup for under-trial prisoners, of a sessions court in Lahore. The arrested man claimed before police at the time that he had killed Riyasat Nazir and Bilal Nazir to avenge the murder of his mother. In August, a man facing a murder charge was gunned down outside a courtroom at a sessions court in Lahore allegedly by the complainant party.
The man had arrived at the sessions court for the hearing of his petition for pre-arrest bail in the case. He was about to enter the courtroom when the assailant appeared and shot him in the head. He died on the spot while the killer escaped without facing any resistance from the security personnel deputed on the court’s premises.
