Heirs of Sahiwal shootout victims record statement before JIT

LAHORE: The heirs of Sahiwal shootout victims on Thursday recorded their statement before the joint investigation team (JIT), days after expressing their dissatisfaction on the probe team, ARY News reported.

The family’s lawyer said the statements of deceased Khalil’s children had been given to the JIT.

He said the children weren’t in a position to count the number of CTD personnel who shot dead their parents.

The suspects haven’t yet been produced before the children, the lawyer said.

Read also: Family of CTD ‘encounter’ victims threaten protest if judicial commission not formed

“The JIT will also contact an eye-witness named Dr Javed to further process their investigation,” according to the lawyer.

He explained that the probe team was analyzing statements of Khalil and Zeeshan separately.

We’ve learnt that the JIT has recorded statement of the senior superintendent of police, CTD, he added.

He warned of approaching the court if justice was not meted out to the family in seven days.

The case background

Four people, including two women, were killed in a shady encounter involving the Punjab police’s CTD on a highway in the Qadirabad area of Sahiwal district on Jan 19.

The Sahiwal incident sent shock waves across the country after one of the surviving children who witnessed the episode refuted the version of the CTD.

The CTD had identified one of the deceased as Zeeshan. The department said he was wanted in several cases of crime, including the kidnapping of Ali Haider Gilani, the son of former premier Yousuf Raza Gilani, and several American citizens.

Another man and two women were killed in the incident. They were identified as Khalil, Nabila, and Areeba, who was 14 years old. Khalil and Nabila were the parents of the injured boy. The deceased hailed from Kot Lakhpat. The CTD department came under fire for killing unarmed people in what some people calling it a ‘shady encounter’.