B A H A W A L P U R : Police claimed on Sunday that another alleged carlifter was killed in firing by his own accomplices during an encounter in a nearby Qatal Amara Mor village.

The PRO to DPO Sarfraz Ahmed Falki said that Ishtiaq, an alleged member of the inter-provincial car-lifters gang, was being taken for the recovery of a stolen car by a Cantonment police team. Near Qatal Amara Mor, Ishtiaq`s accomplices allegedly attacked the police party in a bid to get him freed. The attackers opened fire which incidentally hit their own accomplice Ishtiaq. The police also returned the fire forcing attackers to flee. The injured was taken to the Bahawal Victoria Hospital where he died.

The PRO said that Ishtiaq, who was on remand, was wanted in many cases by police of several cities in Punjab.

Abdul Sattar told reporters that police had brought his son Ishtiaq after arresting him at his house in Mianwali on Sept 26. He said his son was an auto-electrician and was in police custody.

Meanwhile, family members and relatives of three activists of a banned outfit who were killed in an alleged encounter on Saturday demonstrated outside the casualty department of the Bahawal Victoria Hospital against the police on Sunday.

The Uch Sharif police had claimed on Saturday that three activists of banned outfit Qari Nazir Ahmed, Ghulam Hassan and Abdul Rehman Fahad were killed in firing bytheir own accomplices who wanted to get them freed.

Bodies of the three persons were brought to the mortuary of the BVH for post-mortem examination.

Qazi Ehsan told reporters that his son Qari Nazir and others had been taken into police custody during Ramazan after constable Haibat Khan and police razakar Abdul Stattar were killed in a terrorist attack at a mosque in Uch Sharif. He said police had arrested his son and others from Alipur in Muzaffargarh district.

He said he had filed a writ petition in the high court against the arrest of his son Qari Nazir and the hearing was fixed for Oct 14.

NAMED: Dr Maqsood Ahmed, a faculty member of Islamia University Bahawalpur`s chemistry department, has been named in the national committee on crystallography headed by noted scientist and former HEC chairman Prof Dr Ataur Rehman.

According to a press release, the national committee has been formed to promote national and international cooperation, research and writings in the field of crystallography after Pakistan was conferred a regular membership of International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), which held its annual congress recentlyinMontreal (Canada).

The other members of the committee are: Prof Dr Muhammad Iqbal Chaudhry, Dr Samar Yousaf of Karachi University; Prof Dr Muhammad Aslam Beg of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and Dr Mueezur Rehman of Faisalabad.