• Rape survivor ‘a little bit satisfied’ with outcome; district magistrate forms probe body
• Police deny allegation, say bodies handed over to families

ISLAMABAD: The family members of one of the suspects involved in the F-9 rape case have claimed that the police have not handed over the body of the deceased after he was killed in an alleged attack on a police picket in Sector D-12 on Feb 16. Police, however, denied this allegation.

The suspect identified as Nawab Khan was detained by the police from Sector D-12 at 3:30pm on Wednesday, said his father and cousin while talking to Dawn.

They claimed that Nawab was rounded up shortly after the arrest of the co-accused, Iqbal, from a residential area near Golra railway station the same day.

According to the family members, they approached the Golra police station to inquire about the detention of Nawab Khan but the police turned them away and said they had no information about the arrest.

Giving an account of events which resulted in the arrest, the family member said at least three police vehicles came to D-12 to pick up Nawab Khan. In order to cover their tracks, the police also confiscated the video footage recorded by the CCTV cameras installed at a nearby store, they added.

Similarly, the footage pertaining to the arrest of co-accused Iqbal from a residential area in Golra was also confiscated by the police, the family claimed. “The next morning, we came to know about the killing of the two persons in an alleged encounter through the media,” they added.

After the death of the suspect, a police team visited the house of Akram Khan — father of Nawab — at around 2am on Friday and asked him to accompany them to a graveyard in Golra as a “deputy superintendent of police was waiting” for them ahead of the burial of Nawab Khan, the family claimed and added that they asked police to hand over the body instead while refusing to accompany them.

The police team responded they would come back after consulting their superiors but they never did, the family members said.

According to them, they were later told that the police had buried the body in a grave. However, the family of the accused has no idea about the grave or the graveyard where Nawab was purportedly buried. “Nobody from the family has seen the body of Nawab Khan,” they added.

The information regarding the fate and arrest of Iqbal was also shared with Dawn by the family members of Nawab. They claimed that Iqbal’s body was handed over on the condition that they would take it directly to Peshawar from Pims. They quoted the family of Iqbal as saying that the deceased had “signs of torture” on his body.

On the other hand, a police spokesperson told Dawn that the bodies were handed over to the families of the suspects. He could not clarify when and where this exchange took place.

In a comment on the death of the suspects, the rape survivor told Dawn that she was “a little bit satisfied” with the outcome of the case while expressing a lack of trust in the criminal justice system. She also confirmed that she had identified the culprits after their death at Pims. However, she refused to respond when asked if she had also identified them when they were in police custody.

“I cannot reply to the question regarding the identification of culprits in police custody,” she said, adding that she would reveal this information in court.

Over the killing of the two suspects, the district magistrate Islamabad constituted a three-member committee. Interestingly, two police officers were nominated by the magistrate to investigate the matter which involves their colleagues.

‘Attack at police in D-12’

It may be mentioned here that over the killing of the two suspects, the capital police tweeted at 9:02am that the “two unidentified armed motorcycle riders” fired at a police picket in D-12. They were resultantly injured and died on their way to the hospital.

An FIR of the incident was registered at the Golra police station which stated that the incident occurred at around 1:45am, but the matter was reported to the police at 3:20am.

According to police sources, the FIR of the incident was registered on Thursday evening. They added the tweet and the FIR contradicted each other.

The FIR stated that four persons on two motorbikes were signalled to stop at a picket on New Margalla Road, Shah Allah Ditta.

Instead, they took a U-turn and made attempts to escape. As they tried to flee, two persons lost their balance and fell down on the road, and started firing.

Their accomplices also started firing at the police which injured their partners who had fallen to the ground, it added.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2023