Police officials inspect the site after Latif Afridi (inset) was murdered in a break room at Peshawar High Court on Monday. AFP

Tariq Butt, Correspondent / Agencies

Former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and senior lawyer Abdul Latif Afridi was shot dead by a gunman in the premises of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday, police said

The young accused identified as Adnan was arrested immediately after the shooting. He entered the PHC bar room, where the incident took place, as a litigant and fired at Afridi.

Officials said Afridi received six bullets. He was removed to the Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar where he was pronounced dead.

Afridi had a bloody feud with some members of his tribe. When he was the president of the SCBA, he had been booked on the charge of murder. However, the lawyers had raised hue and cry over the registration of the murder case against him, which was quashed.

There was a lot of panic in the PHC premises after the shooting. People ran out of the premises.

Police said they were investigating the “security lapse” how the accused sneaked into the PHC bar room with a weapon that he used to kill Afridi. Police are also going through the CCTV footage.

Afridi was very popular among the lawyers, who immediately protested his killing. They boycotted the courts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). He was known as a principled man.

"The killer, a junior lawyer who was wearing his gown, opened fire at close range and then handed himself over to the police," Ijaz Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar, told AFP.

The gunman fired six shots at 79-year-old Afridi's chest from less than a foot (30 centimetres) away, eyewitness and legal assistant Muhammad Rizwan said.

According to Rizwan, as the gunman surrendered to police, he said: "Don't shoot, I had a feud with him and I have taken my revenge."

Afridi — who also served in the national assembly in the 1990s — was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, according to police.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif described Afridi in a statement as "a seasoned jurist and a brave politician who was known for his righteousness."

Police said there was a case pending against the slain lawyer alleging his involvement in the murder of the father of the man arrested for gunning him down on Monday afternoon.

The attacker, Adnan Khan, had previously accused Afridi of orchestrating the 2015 killing of his father, Samiullah Khan, who was also a lawyer, said Naeem Khan, a police officer.

It was unclear how the attacker managed to sneak into the court building with a handgun.