KARACHI: Rangers on Tuesday informed an antiterrorism court about the preventive detention of a former chief of the Association of Builders and Developers (Abad) for 90 days for questioning.

Rangers soldiers along with their counsel produced the ex-Abad chairman, Babar Mirza Chughtai, and submitted a detention order and jail warrant in the chamber of Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso of the ATC-I.

Set up in 1972, Abad has over 700 members across the country, ranging from low-level developers and engineers to billionaire builders who have key stakes mainly in Karachi and some even in the Middle East. Mr Chughtai remained Abad chairman from 2003 to 2004, then in 2007-08 and finally in 2010 to 2011.

The Rangers submitted that the suspect was picked up on Monday within the jurisdiction of the Sharea Faisal police station upon receiving credible information with regard to his alleged involvement in targeted killing, kidnapping and extortion cases, the offences punishable under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

The court was told that he was placed under preventive detention for three months under Section 11EEEE (1) of the ATA for further questioning and he was being shifted at a special detention centre set up at the Karachi central prison.

In compliance with Section 11 EEEE (3), the suspect was produced along with relevant documents in court for its information, they added.

Meanwhile, the Rangers also informed another ATC about the three-month preventive detention of two more suspects for an inquiry.

The Rangers produced Faisal Masroor and Najeebullah Siddiqui before the judge in charge of the ATC-II, Anandram Sairani, and submitted that they were detained on similar grounds.

The judge also allowed a brief meeting to the wife and a daughter of suspect Najeebullah on the court premises.

Suspected hit man sent to prison

Another ATC remanded on Tuesday a suspect to judicial custody and allowed the police to grill two prisoners in the murder case of a jail official.

After the end of his police remand, suspect Obaid alias K2 was produced in court. The investigation officer submitted that the suspect named Khawaja Faisal and Irfan alias Urfi as his accomplices in the murder case of a deputy superintendent of Karachi central prison and they were also required to be questioned in the present case.

The court was informed that the two accomplices were already confined in prison in connection with some other cases.

Judge Farhan Ali Kanasro of the ATC-IX sent the suspect to prison on judicial remand till April 23 and directed the jail superintendent to allow the police to interrogate the two other suspects in prison.

Jail official Amanullah Khan Niazi along with his brother and three guards was gunned down near Saddar in June 2006.

Meanwhile, the ATC-III sent suspect Obaid alias K2 and his accomplice to prison in a case pertaining to the murder of two police officers.

Obaid and Nadir Shah have been booked for allegedly killing sub-inspectors Mohammad Rehan and Mohammad Nisar in March 2000 in a Solider Bazaar area.

The ATC-III asked the police to submit the investigation report till next hearing.

The Rangers had picked up the suspects along with dozens of other during a raid in and around the Muttahida Qaumi Movement headquarters, Nine Zero, in Azizabad on March 11.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2015

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