KARACHI: Five accused facing trial in the Perween Rahman murder case have denied their involvement in the assassination of the renowned rights activist in Karachi eight years ago.

Rahman, who dedicated her life for development of impoverished neighbourhoods, was gunned down near her office in Orangi Town on March 13, 2013.

The five accused — Abdul Raheem Swati, his son Mohammad Imran Swati and three co-accused Ayaz Shamzai aka Swati, Amjad Hussain Khan and Ahmed Khan aka Ahmed Ali aka Pappu Kashmiri — have been charged with the high-profile murder of 55-year-old activist.

The matter came up before the ATC-VII judge, who is conducting the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, on July 31 when all the five accused were brought to the court from the prison.

The judge was set to record statements of the accused persons as required under Section 342 of the criminal procedure code (CrPC).

ATC records statements of accused in the high-profile case

The accused individually recor­ded their statements and all of them denied the allegations of the prosecution about planning, abetting or killing Ms Rahman, the then director of the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP).

After recording their statements, the judge fixed Aug 9 (today) to record final arguments from the prosecution and the defence sides.

Earlier, the court had recorded testimonies of the witnesses of the prosecution, including the heads and members of five joint investigation teams (JITs), constituted by the provincial and federal governments from time to time on the directives of the Supreme Court to investigate the high-profile murder.

In March, the fifth JIT report revealed that Ms Rahman had named “land grabbers and extortionists” who, she said, were trying to illegal occupy the land of her OPP office. She had revealed this in an interview conducted by journalist Fahad Deshmukh and aired internationally two years before she was killed allegedly by the same group.

The JIT’s head, DIG Babur Bakht Qureshi, said that the team had not only examined the already available record but also probed the case with regard to suspected involvement of the water and land mafia in the killing of Ms Rahman.

“The team had interrogated politicians, journalists and land developers during the course of fresh investigation into the case,” it had added.

The report stated that slain Rah­man in the interview aired internationally had mentioned having a dispute with accused Rahim Swati, who wanted to set up a karate centre on the land of the OPP office. In the interview, Ms Rahman had called Rahim Swati as “land grabber and extortionist”.

The probe team concluded that in the light of the evidence and stat­ements of the witnesses it had emerged that Ms Rahman was murdered by Rahim Swati and his accomplices.

According to the prosecution, some of the accused during interrogation had confessed to their involvement in the crime and disclosed that local leaders of the Awami National Party (ANP) had allegedly hired Taliban militants to kill Ms Rahman.

It added that Shamzai and Swati, who were said to be local leaders of the ANP, were living near the OPP office and allegedly tried to obtain a designated area to build a karate centre, but Ms Rahman refused to allow it.

The prosecution also said that all the accused persons were present in a meeting held in January 2013 at Swati’s residence in which they planned Ms Rahman’s murder, adding that they hired a local commander of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Moosa and Mehfoozullah aka Bhaloo, for the murder.

Initially, a case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Pirabad police station.

Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 was subsequently incorporated in the case on the basis of a judicial inquiry conducted by then district and sessions judge (west) Ghulam Mustafa Memon on the orders of the SC.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2021