[omkhan]

DISCLAIMER : Following is a real incident but some of the points have been deliberately changed for the sake of it being on an open internet forum.

Hi All,

Its been a long time since I posted or logged in here due to the banning of the IP of my ISP or some other issue. .

On 4th of Feb 2012 in late evening I came back home with my family from a short trip of market and parked my car inside. Family went upstairs and I started to take care of my car as it got some mud and I had to clean it. Due to the compact parking area and thus lack of maneuvering around the car, I had to keep the main door slightly opened. Well, big mistake/ blunder/negligence etc etc etc.

So here was I kneeling around the front tyre of my car when I noticed a guy getting inside the gate. One thing to mention that we have tenants on the ground floor and one of the lady there used to teach inter-level students. So when I saw him, I was just wondering if he was one of her students or some relative. He also had a bag on his shoulder like students have and may be that is why I was kind of confused. I stood up, and 2 more guys followed him inside. Suddenly the 1st guy pulled up his shirt and started pulling a pistol.

I had my trusted CF-98 on me at 3-4 o clock position, safety off, chamber loaded and hammer down.The shirt was not tucked. Seeing him reaching for his pistol triggered all the alarm bells in my mind and at that time I decided to not to let them get into the residential area of the house where the family was. I quickly pulled my shirt up and started to draw the pistol while moving on my left side. The distance b/w me and the 1st guy was hardly 6-ft. When he saw me going for the pistol, he stretched his arm and started shooting. I took the hit on the right side of the chest and lost my balance and fell. Laying down, I returned fire at him. All 3 ran out. I had them in my sights so I fired some more shots. As soon as they were out of the vision, I ran upstairs , reloaded and told my wife that I have been shot and lets go to hospital.

I was so panicked that I was not able to think of anything else other than getting to the hospital as most of the casualties happen here because of blood loss hence my ultimate goal now was to reach for getting medical aid. Also things are different here and we can't really rely on the emergency numbers because they take ages to come. I went back downstairs, and drove to the nearest clinic. I could feel the wetness of blood on my shirt and also started to feel the pain of gunshot wound. I reached the emergency ward, told the medics that I have been shot. Usually most private clinics and hospitals here do not take such cases because of the legal issues but may be because I was in a stable state, they inspected me and my wound. It turned out that the bullet struck almost parallel to my body on the right chest, traveled inside around 4-5 inches parallel to the ribs and then exited. I was shot from a distance of a mere 4ft and I had carbon deposits in the entry and exit wounds and other minute scratches which were may be from the unburnt propellant hitting me or what, I am not really sure about it.

They entry wound was quite small but the exit wound was around 1 inch in diameter. The bleeding was not severe as well. This made me quite relaxed but the pain was increased many folds in intensity. My wife meanwhile contacted the ambulance and I was shifted to a proper hospital of the city where they treated me and I was released the very next day.

At that time I could not possibly tell whether I hit any of them but my cousin told me that there was some blood near the road which ofcourse could not be mine. (Later I got to know from some other sources that 2 of them were non-critically hit in the arms/ back/ legs) The police came, took my statement and I registered the FIR (First Investigation Report) against the usual "unknowns" for attempted murder and robbery.

I am thankful to Allah that I was saved miraculously. The wounds took 4-6 weeks later but the marks are still there and probably would never go away. I recovered the bullet the very next day from the porch stuck in the thick wooden door, a .30 caliber. The bullet was not deformed at all and could almost be reloaded.

The whole incident got me pretty shaky and I went on extra high alert due to the fear of retaliation from them which may or may not ever happen. I hope there are lessons for all of us in this story.

I would really like to get feedback on this from all of you and will appreciate any critical comments and tactical mistakes that I might have made except the "You should have complied" thing because when they are inside the home, I think we should expect the worst specially when we have ladies in the family and act according to it.

And yes, no news from police regarding success in the suspects being caught yet although they ran on foot leaving their bike on my door step.

Moreover, our laws are a little different than yours but it is still very clear that the law support home owner in such cases and deadly force is justified when there is : threat of death or great bodily injury, rape, abducting, night time burglary, armed robbery.

Thanks