ISLAMABAD, Sept 30: The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted to probe the murder of federal minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti was reconstituted on Monday as almost all members of the team had been transferred from their posts.

The team was reconstituted on Monday by Chief Commissioner Islamabad Khawaja Jawad Paul in response to a request made by the capital police.

According to a notification issued, the new team comprises of the superintendent of police investigation, sub-divisional police officer, station house officer of the Industrial Area police, and representatives from the Crime Investigation Department and Intelligence Bureau.

The JIT was revised after an alleged terrorist, Hammad Adil, was arrested on August 31 this year and revealed his involvement in the assassination of the minister.

A senior police officer said reconstituting the JIT was a legal process through which the Industrial Area police would obtain custody of the alleged terrorist after he confessed to his crime during interrogation.

The team would launch a fresh investigation to prove Adil’s guilt in the killing and submit a challan in the court, he added.

It may be mentioned here that the police, on August 31, raided Hammad Adil’s house in Bhara Kahu from where an explosive device was recovered. He was arrested but the police later claimed that he had managed to escape.

The accused was then arrested on September 16 in addition to another ‘terrorist’ from the bus terminal at Pirwadhai and 1kg explosives and detonators were seized from them.

Federal Minorities’ Minister Shahbaz Bhatti had been assassinated in broad daylight on March 2, 2011, in an ambush in I-8/4.

A white Mehran intercepted the minister’s car and two gunmen then fired on him. The minister died on the spot.

The assailants’ sketches were made at that time but the investigators failed to trace and arrest them.

Three days later, on March 5, 2011, investigators recovered the vehicle used in the assassination from Satellite Town Rawalpindi. During inspection, the vehicle’s engine was found tampered and its chassis number and registration plate were fake.

Later a Christian clergyman, affiliated with a local church in Karachi, approached a legislator from Punjab and claimed he knew about Mr Bhatti’s murderers.

The police approached the clergyman when the latter arrived in Rawalpindi. He said the minister was killed due to personal enmity and named Ziaur Rehman and Malik Abid as the assailants.

The police then declared that the two were terrorists affiliated with the proscribed TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan). The two (Mr Rehman and Abid) were arrested twice but set free on the directions of the court when the police failed to prove their guilt.

The clergyman later told the police that he had falsely implicated the two people only to mint money from their family.

Interestingly, the police found 53 people named Ziaur Rehman and nine named Malik Abid when they perused through the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) record. They then narrowed their search down to one person each and declared them terrorists.

However, after Hammad Adil’s confession, the JIT has been reconstituted to probe the murder of Shahbaz Bhatti.