KARACHI: An SHO and three others escaped from the courtroom after a sessions judge revoked their interim bail granted earlier in a case pertaining to the killing of a first-year student in a ‘staged’ encounter.

Al-Falah SHO Saadat Ahmed and Constable Zulfiqar Ali Joyo have been charged with shooting to death 19-year-old Hassan Abbas inside the house of S. Sulaiman Ali and S. Kamran Ali — both have also been charged in the same case — in Mustafaabad on Aug 17, 2020.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Muhammad Mehboob pronounced his order when the matter came up for confirmation or otherwise of the interim bail.

Lawyers and witnesses told Dawn that all the four suspects easily escaped from the courtroom and the police failed to make any effort to arrest them. Earlier, the court had granted interim pre-arrest bail to SHO Ahmed, PC Joyo and both private persons against a surety of Rs50,000 each.

According to the prosecution, Sulaiman had lodged an FIR under Section 380 (theft in dwelling house, etc) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code, alleging that Hassan Abbas, a first-year student, barged into his house to commit a robbery, but he called Madadgar 15. Police reached the scene and Constable Zulfiqar mistakenly shot the suspect who died inside their house. Later, the family told the police that the injured was their guest and subsequently their FIR was cancelled, it added.

The prosecution mentioned that later SHO Ahmed lodged a second FIR on the same day under Section 324 (attempted murder) saying Constable Zulfiqar had mistakenly fired upon the victim, whose family had purportedly refused to lodge an FIR.

However, later the police officials and owners of the house were also booked in a case under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) of the PPC.

The judge noted that “ultimately, a young boy of 19-years age has lost his valuable life in mysterious circumstances. Firstly, in the instant FIR the deceased was introduced as a friend of the complainant family, but in the cancelled FIR the deceased was shown as a suspicious dacoit”.

The court observed that such state of affairs created doubts regarding the conduct of both complainants.

The judge ruled that the private applicants and police officials did not qualify for the extraordinary relief of bail at this stage of the case. Subsequently, he dismissed their applications.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2022