KARACHI: Police on Monday informed a court that two suspects booked in a case pertaining to the death of Dr Maha Shah in Defence Housing Authority were avoiding giving their DNA samples despite repeated notices.

The police had initially said that the 24-year-old doctor, practising at a private hospital in Clifton, had allegedly committed suicide by shooting herself in her DHA home on Aug 18, 2020.

Later, police booked her friends, Junaid Khan, Waqas Hussain Rizvi and Dr Irfan Qureshi, along with two others in a case pertaining to poisoning a person to death.

On Monday, the matter came up before Judicial Magistrate (South) Tehmina Yasir for submission of the final investigation report by the investigating officer under Section 173 of the criminal procedure code (CrPC).

A magistrate gives IO more time to file the final investigation report

The IO submitted that suspects Junaid Khan and Waqas Rizvi were not cooperating in the investigation of the case.

He further submitted that they had repeatedly been asked to appear before the relevant department for giving samples of their DNA for matching of the same with the victim’s, but they were avoiding to do so.

He mentioned that fresh notices were issued to both the suspects calling for giving their DNA samples, but they failed to turn up; thus investigation was still incomplete and a final investigation report could not be submitted to the court.

The IO requested the court to allow him more time to obtain the DNA samples of the suspects and submit a final investigation report along with the laboratory chemical analysis report.

The DNA samples of other suspects had already been obtained and sent to the laboratory for chemical analysis, he maintained.

In September, the two suspects had escaped from court after their interim pre-arrest bail was recalled and the applications for bail confirmation were rejected.

A judicial magistrate had already discharged the sole detained suspect, Dr Qureshi, from the case “for the time being” till the filing of the final investigation report by the IO. He was granted post-arrest bail against a surety of Rs500,000.

‘Lyari gangster’ remanded

The administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts on Monday remanded a suspected gangster in police custody in a case pertaining to possession of arms and explosives.

Shahid Rehman, said to be associated with the outlawed Peoples Amn Committee (PAC), was produced before the administrative judge.

The IO informed the court that the suspect was allegedly involved in 16 criminal cases, including murder, attempted murder and terrorism, pending before different courts in which he had obtained bail.

He sought 14-day physical remand of the suspect to complete the investigation and other legal formalities.

However, the judge remanded the suspect in police custody till Jan 22 with a direction to produce him on the next date along with an investigation report.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2021