KARACHI: An attempt by Salman Abro, son of a senior police officer and the prime suspect in the Suleman Lashari murder case, to wrongly overtake the victim’s vehicle on Seaview Road led to the gory incident that left the young student and a police guard dead and the suspect wounded, it emerged in the charge-sheet submitted in court on Friday.

Investigation officer inspector Mubin Ahmed submitted the charge-sheet in the ATC-3 that quoted the victim’s brother that Salman Abro and Suleman Mustafa Lashari had an exchange of harsh words on the road over the wrong overtake by the suspect.

Lashari, a student of O level, was shot dead in his home in Defence Housing Authority on May 8.

It was stated that Abro with five police constables came to the victim’s house and opened fire on him and others.

One of the victim’s guards, Ghulam Ali, opened fire on the attackers leaving Abro and a police guard, Zaheer Ahmed, wounded. Ahmed later died while Abro was admitted to a private hospital. Ali was also wounded in the exchange of fire, the police added.

The police also inserted Section 457 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking by night in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment) in the charge-sheet against the suspects after determining that the suspects barged into the victim’s house with intent to kill him.

The charge-sheet said that during the course of investigation, the record obtained from the Sakrand Training Centre established that the weapons used by the policemen, who were the guards of Abro’s father, SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro, were issued to them from the training centre.

The police report further said that that the medico-legal certificates of the Jinnah hospital and the Ziauddin hospital confirmed that the suspect was over 18 years of age.

It said that the shooting spread fear and a sense of insecurity among area people and the public as the incident was reported in the media.

Public prosecutor Abdul Maroof requested the court to accept the charge-sheet for hearing saying that scientific, medical, ocular, circumstantial, chemical and ballistic evidences had been included in the investigation report by the police.

Salman Abro, police constable (PC) Maqbool Ahmed Brohi, PC Imran Ali Arain, PC Yaseen Jamali and PC (driver) Mohammed Rashid were shown in custody while the name of the dead PC, Zaheer Ahmed, in the column two of the charge-sheet meaning thereby that the police did not sent up the deceased policeman for trial.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempted murder), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupee) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, on the complaint of a brother of the deceased at the Darakhshan police station.

The judge in-charge of the ATC-3 had on Tuesday warned the investigation officer of the case that he would be put into jail if he failed to submit a charge-sheet within three days.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2014