No clue to attackers in Lahore’s Canal Road murder

LAHORE: The Organised Crime Unit (OCU) of Lahore police was so far groping in the dark to track down the shooters who murdered underworld don Khwaja Tareef Gulshan alias Teefi Butt’s brother-in-law Javed Butt and seriously injured his sister (Javed’s wife) on Monday.

In a related development, the names of three suspects in the murder case, including slain Ameer Balaj’s two brothers, Ameer Mussab and Ameer Fateh, and Qaisar Butt, have been included in the Provisional National Identification List (PNIL) on the recommendations of Lahore police high-ups.

Of them, Fateh and Qaisar Butt were nominated in the murder case of Javed Butt, lodged on Tuesday with Ichhra police. Two other assailants were also included in the FIR, registered on the complaint of Javed Butt’s son Hamza Javed.

A senior OCU official says that all the the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) cameras installed near the crime scene on the Canal Road were found ‘dysfunctional’.

PSCA cameras near the crime scene found nonfunctional

He says the PSCA cameras are the primary source for police to track down those involved the street crimes and murder cases.In the past, the Lahore police, particularly, the OCU has traced and arrested many criminals, resolving several high-profile cases with the help of the PSCA cameras.

Particularly, these cameras played a decisive role in tracking down several terrorist networks who carried out anti-state activities in Lahore, the official adds.

“Our investigators were left shocked to find that all the five PSCA cameras [near the crime scene] on the Canal Road were not functioning,” he says. It is also worrying as the road is one of the main arteries of the city, frequently used for VIP and VVIP movement almost daily, he adds.

He says the OCU teams are trying hard to access data of any private cameras in the area to track down the attackers, but with little hope, as most of these devices only cover the nearby streets and roads.

Meanwhile, in the FIR, complainant Hamza Javed stated that his mother, who got injured in the attack, had recognised the both nominated suspects when they allegedly opened fire on his father’s vehicle.

Hamza stated that the four attackers riding two motorcycles opened fire when his father slowed down the vehicle near the FCC Underpass, leaving Javed Butt dead on the spot.

According to the postmortem report, Javed Butt received five bullets in various parts of his body.

To a question about the suspects nominated in the murder case, the official said Qaisar Butt was a close friend of Balaj, who was killed in Jan 2024 in Chuhng area in a wedding ceremony.

He said that Balaj’s brother Mussab, who was complainant in Balaj’s murder case, had left Pakistan on Aug 28.

The police didn’t nominate him in the FIR when his family members produced his travel documents as an evidence, showing he was not in the country on the day Javed Butt was murdered.

The official said that the victim’s family also wanted to nominate OCU Sub-Inspector Shakeel Butt in the murder case for being close to Balaj’s family. However, the police high-ups convinced the family that Shakeel had nothing to do with the murder.

He said the OCU investigators also met several traders of the Brandreth Road, where Javed Butt was running his business.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2024