PESHAWAR: Senior barrister and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Abdul Lateef Afridi was killed in a shooting inside the Peshawar High Court (PHC) bar room on Monday, the police said.
According to police, Afridi had been sitting with other lawyers in the bar room when a gunman opened fire at him. The accused, identified as Adnan Afridi, was arrested by the police who recovered a small weapon, identity card and law license from him.
Afridi was rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital in the provincial capital but could not be saved and succumbed to his wounds during treatment.
The event has raised serious questions about security at the court. Despite the strict security measures in place, including the requirement to show identity at the entrance, the gunman was able to enter the bar room and commit the crime.
The association of PHC lawyers has condemned the incident as a security lapse and is calling for an investigation into how the attacker was able to bypass the court’s protections.
سپریم کورٹ بار کے سابق صدر اور سینئر وکیل لطیف افریدی پر فائرنگ کرنے والا ملزم کو پولیس نے گرفتار کرلیا #Peshawar #LatifAfridi pic.twitter.com/NZ2HCMYWeW
— Aziz Buneri (@azizbuneri) January 16, 2023
Afridi was among seven people acquitted in December of the charge of killing anti-terrorism court (ATC) judge Aftab Afridi and his four family members in 2021, after the judge declared the prosecution had failed to prove its case against the lawyer and his son.
Judge Afridi, who was posted to Swat, had come under a gun attack near Ambar Interchange in the Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on April 4, 2021 when he was travelling in his vehicle with his family on the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway.
The ambush had killed the judge, his wife and his pregnant daughter-in-law along with her three-year-old son and injured his guard and driver.
The court’s decision to acquit the suspects had sparked controversy, with many questioning why the prosecution failed to bring the real perpetrators of the audacious murder to justice.
