PESHAWAR: Three bodies bearing marks of bullet wounds were recovered from an apartment of Deans Complex in Hayatabad Phase II area here on Monday, the police said.

SP (Cantonment Circle) Hassan Jehangir Wattoo told Dawn that the apartment, where the bodies were found, was located on the fourth floor of the building.

He said one of the deceased was Ziauddin of Landi Kotal area in Khyber district, who was a prayer leader in his village and owned a juice shop in Torkham Bazaar.

The SP said another deceased was Naveed Soomro of Khairpur area of Sindh, who had introduced himself as a government employee to neighbors, while the third one was Naeem Soomro appeared to be the brother of Naveed as indicted by a passport found on the body.

He, however, said the identity had yet to be confirmed due to the bad condition of the body.

Mr Wattoo said a pistol was seized from near Naveed’s body along with six empties from the premesis.

He said apparently, the three were killed two days ago.

The SP said the main door to the fourth floor of the building was locked from inside.

“Apparently, something happened inside the flat,” he said, adding that the apartment

was located on the fourth floor making it difficult for someone to approach it from the other side.

Mr Wattoo said the police’s investigators entered the apartment after smashing its main door and found one of the bodies to be lying next to it.

He said a CCTV camera was installed opposite that flat.

The SP said currently, the police’s investigators were poring over the CCTV footage to check if someone had come from outside besides checking the records of calls made to or by mobile phones of the deceased.

He said the apartment was rented by Naveed.

Mr Wattoo said the police had recovered a bottle of liquor and little quantities of charas from the apartment but no ice was found there.

The bodies were shifted to a hospital for postmortem.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2020