The recent double murder and the flawless escape of the assassin from the crime scene located inside the courtroom of the sessions court exposed the efficiency of security personnel present in important buildings such as the sessions court itself. Two brothers were shot dead inside a courtroom while the judge was hearing the case on May 28. A man killed both brothers, Shani and Mani Butt, threw the gun in the courtroom and strolled through the judge’s retiring room, escaping scratch-less. The session court is the district’s most important court with criminal, corporate and civil cases heard in its premises. The court’s case log includes land dispute, kidnapping, murder and cases of financial scam.
On average the court is visited by six thousand individuals every working day. A total of 13 police personnel, including two female officers and an ASI, are deputed to check the intense coming and going out of the court’s three gates. No police personnel are deployed inside the courts’ premises. Police only enters the court to escort accused from jail to the courtroom for a hearing. Security checks at the session’s court gates also appear insufficient. Police personnel carrying metal detectors check only some of those entering the court. The metal detectors beeps are often ignored. Eyewitnesses to Saturday’s courtroom carnage claim the shooter had waited inside the courtroom for the murdered brothers to arrive.
The shooter opened fire when one of the brothers stood on the witness box. The shooter opened fire dead in the centre of the courtroom and no one came forward to challenge him, they said. Witnesses even claimed he had offered to surrender but no one came forward. That someone could empty a magazine of bullets in a courtroom and walk out the courtroom is worrying. Having thrown the gun, the shooter, dressed in a lawyer’s suiting and carrying a file, chameleoned his way out of the court. Sadly, it appears this may not be the first or the last incident on the same premises. Lawyers have asked how a gun entered the court’s premises and how no backup arrived during the shooting.
‘Lawyers to blame’: Conversations with police suggest the security of the sessions court shall become a game of cat and mouse since police officials point to the arrogance of lawyers as the incident’s cause. Police claim the only reason a gun can enter the premises is if an individual enters dressed as a lawyer. “They don’t let us check them. ‘Don’t you recognize us we come here everyday’, they say,” said a senior police official. Lawyers on the other hand blame police claiming guards were at fault for not being vigilant enough to differentiate between regulars and outsiders. ‘Guards have a bad memory and are incompetent,” they said. Despite attempts DSP Shakeel Khokar avoided commenting on the matter. However, the SHO concerned said they follow orders. “We shall deploy more men when we are ordered to”, he said.
An insecure sessions court
