LAHORE, May 26: Five people were shot dead while six others injured when their rivals, known in the underworld, sprayed bullets on them near the Civil Secretariat here on Monday.

Police said one of the injured, Arif Ameer Butt alias Tipu, the son of the late underworld lord, Billa Truckanwala, was the actual target of the attackers.

Billa of Shah Aalmi Gate, who had an enmity with Teefi Butt and Gogi Butt of Gowalmandi over underworld rule, was murdered five years ago.

Eye-witnesses told Dawn that Tipu and his nine associates visited the Evacuee Trust Property Board office on the Court Street near Civil Secretariat. They were returning by two cars when two armed men opened fire on them with automatic weapons. “One of them was clad in jeans and T-shirt and the other had worn shalwar kameez,” vendor Tufail Ahmad said. He added that they sprayed bullets on the cars for two to three minutes. The cars’ occupants came out and ran off helter-skelter to save their lives, but the armed men chased them and kept firing.

Injured Tipu got refuge in a building. Meanwhile, two of his gunmen responded with fire, making the attackers retreat. But before they ran to save themselves, they had injured 10 people.

The attackers, hardly few metres away, stopped a car and held up the driver, Advocate Abdur Razzaq. They got the advocate off the car and drove away with it.

The police took the injured to the Mayo Hospital where three of them were pronounced dead on arrival. Two others died after first-aid dressing.

Those dead were identified as Tipu’s three gunmen Mohsin Shah, 40, Ali Rahman, 35, and Nasir Ali, 30, and his friend, Nazar Shah, 40, and a cab-driver, Sardar Butt, 50.

Tipu’s another four guards, Sabz Gull, Nadeem, Mazhar and Iftikhar, and passer-by Razzaq Ali, were admitted to the hospital with serious injuries. Three of them were stated to be in critical condition by the doctors.

The car in which the attackers escaped was later found at Malipura in Shafiqabad, about 20 kilometres from the scene of crime.

It is learnt that none of the dozens of policemen patrolling there tried to stop the fleeing men, though a wireless message had been aired. However, a highway police press release claimed to have chased the car on the Bund Road. “But the occupants managed to escape,” the highway police added. The Aiwan-i-Adal that houses civil courts had been a spot for several such incidents in the past, but the police had failed to arrange security over there. The policemen deployed at the Aiwan for security were seen running away when the incident took place. “They saw the incident, but ran away,” alleged a litigant, Hameed Ahmad.

None of the senior police officers, including city police chief Khwaja Khalid Farooq and Lahore Operations and Prevention police SSP Aftab Cheema, were willing to comment on the situation.

A police source said Tipu’s father had enjoyed ‘very good relations’ with police, and most of his ‘businesses’ were supported by the senior police officers. “Nobody ever dared arrest him, except once when he was detained at Old Anarkali police lock-up on the directions of the then government. However, he was set free within hours,” he said.

Tipu had been in hiding since the death of his father a few years ago. He had confined himself to his business place-cum-rest house till his brother Shafiqa Baba and accomplice Hanifa were killed in encounters with police in the Sharif’s last tenure.

Hanifa and Baba had reportedly spent most of their time in the underworld with Billa Truckanwala. However, they developed differences with Billa and joined his rival group, headed by Teefi Butt and Gogi Butt of Gowalmandi. They were also said to have been involved in his murder.

The police source said Tipu then developed friendship with some ‘notorious’ police officers. Tipu had announced that he would crown the then Lahore police chief when Hanifa and Baba were killed in encounters. However, the offer was turned down, the source added.

Meanwhile, the bodies were sent to the city mortuary for autopsy. Scores of armed men of the Tipu group escorted the bodies in the presence of the police.

The police claimed to have registered a case.