LAHORE: The police authorities are ‘considering’ the option of not sending investigation officers to courts in future and will take up lawyers’ attack on investigation officers in courts with the institutions concerned in the wake of two recent incidents.

Lawyers allegedly beat up two investigation officers in as many incidents on Jan 24. In one of the incidents, a group of lawyers also blackened the face of a police inspector with ink outside a courtroom (Sessions Court).

A senior police official told Dawn that the latest incident sent a wave of anger and frustration in the Lahore police which had “criticised the judiciary for not taking suo motu of such happenings.”

The irony was that the policemen avoided saving their fellows in courts because of lawyers’ domination and aggression.

The official said nobody could take law into hands and if any lawyer was not satisfied with the investigation of the police, he should contact court rather threatening the IOs and attacking them.

He said the IOs had started requesting for their transfers after the recent incidents and expressing dissatisfaction over the judiciary’s cold shoulder.

He said the ASI, who was beaten up by a lawyer representing an alleged robber in Cantonment Courts, was granted post-arrest bail by a judge who initially ordered three-day physical remand of the lawyer and later removed 7-ATA from the case on lawyers’ pressure.

Official statistics available with Dawn show that 24 cases of lawyer attacks on investigation officers have been reported from 2010 in courts of the provincial capital out of which the police submitted complete challan in nine cases, incomplete challan in three cases, discharged four cases due to a lack of evidence or after reconciliation.

Furthermore, three cases are untraced owing to a lack of information about the whereabouts of suspects and five cases are under investigation.

Most thrashing incidents take place in subordinate courts and nominated lawyers secure bails. The police fail to arrest lawyers and their accomplices due to various factors.

Preliminary police inquiries showed that Advocate Babar Waheed of Samanabad, his brother Sajid Iqbal and nephew Soman had been involved in 14 cases of murders, attempted murders, police encounters and illegal weapons in the police stations of Samanabad and Gulshan-i-Ravi.

On Jan 23, Soman and his accomplices wounded neighbour Khalid when he tried to stop them from creating nuisance in town around 1:30am. The Samanabad SHO and his subordinates reached the crime scene on an emergency call but the suspects confronted them and opened fire which left Muhammad Aamir, Imran, Aslam, Saeed, constables Aamir Liaqat and Riasat Ali injured. Haseeb suffered club injury.

The police registered a case under sections 324, 353, 186, 148, 149, 109 of PPC and 7-ATA against Soman, his wife and six accomplices.

Samanabad investigation in-charge Omer and his team took four accused into custody the same day. Soman managed to get his wife Maryam released from the Racecourse woman police station with the help of bailiff. She was later formally arrested in the case.

On Jan 24, IO Omer appeared before the sessions court along with the case record where Advocate Babar and his colleagues subjected him to severe torture, tore his uniform and snatched the case file. To further humiliate the cop, the lawyers blackened his face with ink. The Rescue 1122 ambulance took him to hospital.

The clash was followed by an argument when lawyers used abusive language against the inspector. The lawyer claimed it was a quarrel between the lawyers and the police.

According to the police record, Soman is also involved in cases of firing on Mohafiz Force officials and torture of a traffic warden, and his uncle Babar backed him.

The inspector, according to sources, was so depressed and frustrated that he approached his superiors and decided not to continue as the Samanabad Investigation in-charge and prefer to stay away from field posting.

He also complained to his higher-ups that the Islampura circle DSP and the SHO even skipped the sessions court when he was being thrashed by lawyers. He condemned his fellow cops for not rescuing him.

On the other hand, Lahore Bar Association head Chaudhry Ishtiaq said such incidents seldom took place owing to the police attitude and highhandedness. He told Dawn that Advocate Babar, along with LBA office-bearers, spoke to the media at the LHC on Wednesday and narrated facts about Inspector Omer Butt’s grudge against the lawyer.

Ishtiaq said Inspector Omer tried to settle score with Babar by trespassing on his house and manhandling members of his family following a shooting incident. He said Babar was counsel in a private complaint against the inspector in connection with a kidnapping case.