KARACHI: The administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts admitted on Friday a charge sheet in a case pertaining to the murder of a teenager against eight officials of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell and sent it to an ATC for trial.

The case is being investigated by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD). However, a prosecutor pointed out many lacunas and flaws in the investigation of the case in his scrutiny note apparently committed by IO to give favour to suspects.

A couple of days after a judicial magistrate referred the case to the ATC, IO Aziz Shaikh turned up along with the charge sheet and the prosecution submitted it along with a scrutiny note before the administrative court of ATCs, Karachi.

Public prosecutor Muzaffar Hussain Solangi in his scrutiny note observed that official weapons were unlawfully used by two ACLC policemen in the crime and it attracted Section 25 of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013, but no FIR was registered against the policemen.

The IO neither sent the CCTV footage of the incident for forensic examination, nor collected the report of a joint investigation team, it added.

The security note further said that the IO claimed that detained policemen confessed to have committed the offence, but he did not produce them before a judicial magistrate to record their confessional statements under Section 164 (power to record statements and confessions) of the criminal procedure code.

Mr Solangi, who has been dealing with cases of terrorism at the administrative court of ATCs since 2015, also pointed out that Madiha Kayani was the only eyewitness of the case, but the IO did not bother to bring the suspects before the magistrate to get them identified through the eyewitness in the identification parade.

After admitting the charge sheet, the administrative judge sent the case to ATC-13 for trial.

Initially, the then station house officer of ACLC Tariq Mehmood; inspectors Azhar Ahsan and Tariq Raheem; head constables Ghulam Abbas, son of Niaz Ali; and Shahid and constables Ghulam Abbas, son of Ghulam Raza; Fawad Khan; Mohammad Daniyal and Bilal Rasheed were booked for allegedly killing 19-year-old student Intizar Ahmed on the night Jan 13 in Defence Housing Authority.

However, the IO named eight officials as accused in the investigation report, but left out head constable Ghulam Abbas and contended that he was not present at the time of the incident.

The name of Madiha Kayani, who was travelling with the victim at the time of the incident but silently disappeared from the crime scene instead of reporting it to the police, was placed among the list of prosecution witnesses.

The IO said in the report that Daniyal and Bilal, said to be gunmen of the then SSP ACLC Muqaddas Haider, had opened fire upon the car of Intizar with pistols that caused his death. One of the bullets fired by Bilal hit the victim on one side of the head and made an exit from the other, it added.

It further maintained in the charge sheet that Daniyal and Bilal were not the part of the ACLC team, reportedly deputed for vehicle checking in DHA, but the then SHO forgot some articles at his office and he called Bilal and then both policemen arrived at the crime scene just before the incident along the belongings of the SHO.

Interestingly, according to Section 6.4 (d) of the Police Rules 1934, pistol/revolver can only be authorised to a gazetted officer while the charge sheet was also silent whether any standard operating procedure (SPO) was in place to arm constables with pistols.

The charge sheet further said that the father of deceased, who is also the complainant in the case, had expressed reservations during investigations and contended that it was a planned murder and also pointed a finger at the then chief of the ACLC and others.

However, the IO claimed in the charge sheet that the then SSP, an inspector of police and some other persons were also questioned during investigations, but nothing came on record to establish the allegations of the complainant.

The charge sheet said that while six other ACLC officials were named as accused since they intercepted the car of the victim while donning plainclothes, committing professional negligence and fleeing from the crime scene after the incident.

On March 7, a judicial magistrate referred the case to the administrative judge of the ATC after two prosecutors observed in the scrutiny note that the offence had created fear and insecurity among people and recommended that Sections 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 be incorporated in the case and sent it to an antiterrorism court for trial.

The public prosecutors Khair Mohammad Khattak and Abdul Qadeer Memon had initially scrutinised the investigation report and observed that the incident had created fear and insecurity among the people since the victim was unarmed and the ACLC men restored to unprovoked firing that resulted his death.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2018