ISLAMABAD: An anti-terrorism court of Islamabad on Monday removed the terrorism charges against the five policemen involved in killing Osama Satti and referred the case to the sessions’ court.

The father of the deceased, however, decided to challenge the ATC’s decision before the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

ATC Judge Shahrukh Arjumand last week reserved the order on the applications of detained cops seeking deletion of clauses of Anti-Terrorism Act from the FIR registered against them in connection with Satti’s murder.

As per the FIR registered by Satti’s father, his son Osama had a quarrel with officials of the capital police a day earlier and the latter had threatened him with dire consequences.

“On Jan 2, at around 2am, Osama had gone to drop his friend at H-11. When he was returning, the police officials intercepted his vehicle and fired at him from all sides, which resulted in his death.” The ATC judge, however, rejected the post-arrest bail plea of an under custody accused.

ATC judge has announced the order in open court on Monday.

Following the court’s order, advocate Raja Faisal Younis counsel for the complainant told the mediapersons that they would file the appeal against ATC’s order before IHC.

“We will go to the Supreme Court against this order since we believe that there are sufficient evidence to establish that this was the case of terrorism and falls within the ambit of the ATA,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2021