LAHORE: The Organised Crime Unit (OCU) claims to have made a major breakthrough in the murder case of Javed Butt, the brother-in-law of underworld don Khwaja Tareef alias Teefi Butt and dispatched teams to trace and arrest assailants.

Sources said the shooters were identified through the private cameras and geofencing of the surroundings of the crime spot, the FC College Underpass and some other localities.

They said one of them was a rickshaw driver and a resident of Sanatnagar of Lahore while the other hailed from Pattoki, Kasur.

An official source said apparently four shooters were hired for the assassination of Teefi Butt’s brother-in law and they were given the target to hit and kill him on the spot.

Teams sent to arrest assailants who were identified through cameras, geofencing

During an armed attack, Teefi Butt’s sister also came under fire and there was no plan to target her or other members of the family.

He said the rickshaw driver was already involved in petty crime other than earning his livelihood by picking up passengers.

The OCU teams traced the owner of the rickshaw by exploring dozens of cameras on the routes the driver used to flee from the crime spot soon after hitting the target, the official said.

He said the owner of the rickshaw told the police that the shooter had taken his three-wheeler on rent for the last three years or so.

The suspected shooter used both the motorbike and rickshaw to chase and

carry out the attack while his other

accomplice came on a bike for the same purpose.

He said the rickshaw driver changed his appearance by dyeing his hair in order to conceal his identity soon after he carried out a fatal armed attack on Javed Butt.

The purpose was to deceive the police, the official said, adding that the shooter later went underground for many days.

The official source said before assassination Javed Butt had undergone eye operations and was on medical rest at home.

It seems someone close to him or his family had leaked the information of his expected movement when he had left his home to pick children from the school.

The informer passed on secret information to the planners of his murder the same way informer Ahsan Shah had leaked the information of movement of young Ameer Balaj Tipu who was allegedly murdered by the shooters in February this year.

He said Shah, who was close friend to deceased Balaj, was allegedly murdered in an encounter with the OCU team.

The most irritating part of the three-generation-old gang war between Tipu and Teefi Butt’s families was that it had assumed a dangerous trend of targeting the families of each other. The Lahore police high-ups feared ‘collateral damage’ if the above-mentioned rivals continued to target the family members or other close relatives of each other.

To a question, the official source said the OCU teams were dispatched to a city of Punjab and another one of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the suspected shooters were hiding to avoid arrests.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2024