KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday directed a senior superintendent of police (SSP) to register a case against five policemen for committing the murder of two persons in an alleged encounter last year in Surjani Town.

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Nazar Akbar also asked the SSP (West) to immediately take disciplinary action against the policemen and submit a compliance report within three days.

The bench set aside the conviction of appellant Mohammad Javed handed down by the trial court in the police encounter and illicit weapons cases and observed that the cases of prosecution were not trustworthy and there were several dents in its story.

The prosecution contended that a police party headed by ASI Imran Rasheed was on patrol in April 2019 in Kaneez Fatima Society, Surjani Town, when they received information about a robbery and reached there. The suspects allegedly opened fire on the policemen, who returned fire that left Ghulam Shabbir and Ghulam Rasool dead and Javed was arrested on the spot. Their fourth accomplice Yousuf alias Murtaza, escaped.

Appointment of commissioner, DG SBCA challenged

The police booked the appellant with his alleged accomplices in two cases and an antiterrorism court (ATC) handed down a collective sentence of 16 years to him in January this year.

The appellant filed an appeal against the ATC order in the SHC and the appellate division bench, after going through the entire record and hearing arguments from both sides, allowed the appeal and directed the jail authorities to release the appellant if he was not wanted in any other criminal case.

The bench observed it had clearly surfaced that police officials ASI Rasheed, constables Mohammad Arif, Sajjad Hussain, Fahad Ali and Waqar Hussain had brutally murdered Ghulam Shabbir and Ghulam Rasool in the name of an encounter.

The bench pointed out many flaws in the story of the prosecution and said that in their own evidence the police officials had said they used submachine guns (SMGs) in retaliation during the alleged encounter, but only three SMG empties were secured from the crime site and as many spent bullet casings of pistol, said to have been fired by the suspects, were also found, but no policeman or passerby was injured and even nothing had hit the police van.

It observed that of the three empties of a 30-bore pistol, one did not even match with the so-called pistol alleged to have been seized from the dead and the appellant.

The medico-legal officer’s statement showed that the deceased persons were shot dead from a distance of about two feet with a single bullet injury in their heads with a very high-velocity weapon, it added.

The bench further said that the allegation of robbery and encounter that came on record at least in this case could not be proved because the memo of seizure and arrest did not show any empty of pistol and the so-called robbed articles sealed on the spot, adding that the failure of seizure of the property on the spot could only lead to believe that nothing was recovered from the deceased persons and the appellant.

The story of robbery had been an obvious afterthought that was why the case of robbery had not been tried by the trial court and no application under Section 21-M (joint trial) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 had been filed by the investigating officer or the additional prosecutor general to show that this case was still pending before the ATC, it added.

The police had lodged two cases against the appellant, two deceased and an absconder under sections 324 (attempted to commit murder), 353 (criminal assault or force to deter public servant from discharging his duty) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the ATA and under Section 23(i) (a) of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013 at the Surjani Town police station.

Appointment of commissioner, DG SBCA

Another division bench of the SHC on Monday issued notices to the provincial authorities on two petitions challenging the appointment of the commissioner of Karachi and the director general of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA).

The bench headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar put the Sindh chief secretary, secretary of services, general administration and coordination department, secretary of local government department, commissioner of Karachi, SBCA DG and other respondents as well as additional advocate general of Sindh on notice with the direction to file comments by next hearing.

A regular litigant petitioned the SHC and contended that on Nov 2 Iftikhar Ali Shallwani, who was already holding the post of administrator of Karachi, had been assigned an additional charge of commissioner of Karachi division till further orders.

The petitioner in the second petition argued that on the same day Shamsuddin Soomro, who was holding the post of additional chief secretary to the ombudsman secretariat Sindh, had been tasked with an additional charge of SBCA DG.

The petitioner contended that the additional charge assigned to both respondents was illegal and also prejudicial to all such officers who were entitled to be posted as commissioner of Karachi and SBCA DG.

The bench directed its office to fix both petitions for hearing in the second week of January.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2020