LAHORE: Police claimed on Wednesday to have arrested one of the attackers who had allegedly assaulted workers of a petrol pump near the Allama Iqbal International Airport.

A video of the incident has been circulating across social media, sparking public outrage over the misuse of influence and mistreatment of workers.

The footage shows a group of men, including an armed man, thrashing an employee of the petrol pump in DHA.

Police said the suspect had been tracked down by inspecting hundreds of CCTV recordings and he was arrested from Rawalpindi. However, the two other suspects involved in the daylight attack on filling station employees were still untraced.

Lahore DIG Operations Faisal Kamran confirmed the arrest and said the arrested suspect was identified as Rizwan. He was seen terrorising petrol pump employees at gunpoint.

According to the video, he said, the suspect had pulled out a gun, pointed it directly at the employees with an intention to kill them. He said the furious armed man had turned violent and used a lethal weapon to intimidate the workers along with his other accomplices before subjecting the staff to physical violence.

The DIG said the footage also spotted two suspects, slapping a worker, humiliating him and his other fellows.

The incident of violence against the poor workers took place on Sunday last, he said, adding the police acted soon after it received a complaint and an FIR was registered against the unknown attackers.

“We took help from the Safe Cities Authority which deployed multiple teams to track down the vehicle of the suspects,” the DIG said, adding the cameras finally led to the last location of the vehicle in Rawalpindi.

He said the police nabbed Rizwan, seized the vehicle and handed him over to the investigation police.

The filling station manager had alleged in the FIR that three suspects turned violent when the petrol station employees stopped them from using the underground storage tank as a toilet. He said the employees witnessed the armed man loading a bullet in the gun with an intention to open fire.

He alleged the suspects were drunk and they attacked the employees besides torturing one employee.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2026