August 16, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-us-Saani 6, 1423

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MULTAN, Aug 15: The Muzaffargarh district coordination officer has instructed the Alipur branch of the National Bank not to make payments through the joint account of Mukhtaran Mai, the Meerwala gang-rape victim, and her father without his consent.

This was stated by bank manager Muhammad Younas while deposing before the local anti-terrorism court on Thursday as defence witness. He was called as witness by the court on the request of defence council Malik Saleem in order to give details of the account jointly managed by Mukhtaran Mai and her father, Ghulam Farid.

The manager said an account was opened in the name of Ghulam Farid on July 5, 2002, and a cheque for Rs500,000 issued by the President’s Secretariat was deposited by him on July 10. Another cheque issued by a local public school was also deposited by the account holder on July 15, he said. In the meanwhile, a joint account in the name of Ghulam Farid and Mukhtaran Mai was also opened in the same branch and Rs500,000 were transferred to this account from the account of Farid. He said Rs30,000 and Rs15,000 had been withdrawn from the account of Farid on July 15 and Aug 12, respectively.

He said the joint account was opened on the directions of the Muzaffargarh DCO who had instructed the bank that no payment should be made through the joint account without his consent as Mukhtaran Mai had announced that she would open a school with this grant.

The defence called the bank official because the victim had deposed before the court that she had not received even a single penny from anybody and that she had donated the presidential grant of Rs0.5m for the construction of a school in the area.

Dawn’s correspondent Nadeem Saeed deposed his statement as defence witness two. He said he visited Meerwala on July 11 last and the victim’s brother, Hazoor Bakhsh, told him that the police had arrested one Fayyaz Husain of Rampur instead of the actual rapist, Fayyaz Husain, of Meerwala. Molvi Abdul Razzaq also endorsed the statement of Hazoor Bakhsh.

The version of Hazoor Bakhsh was quoted in the story “Police, feudals trying to save the chief juror” published in this paper on July 12.

On cross-examination by the prosecutors, the DW2 said neither he knew Hazoor Bakhsh and Molvi Razzaq before July 11 nor they showed their identity cards to him to prove their identities. He said Abdul Shakoor, the younger brother of the gang-rape victim, introduced Hazoor Bakhsh to him as his elder brother. He said he had recognized Shakoor easily because of his pictures published in newspapers. Defence counsel Malik Saleem objected to the prosecution query about the version of the accused published in the July 12 story regarding the Meerwala incident. At this, the court advised the defence counsel to refrain from frequent interruptions.

Replying to another query, the DW2 said he could not get official response to the Hazoor Bakhsh’s claim regarding the arrest of accused Fayyaz on the same day. However, on July 15 he succeeded to contact Dera Ghazi Khan range DIG Asif Nawaz who expressed a surprise over the complainants’ accusation, saying the police produced the accused before them while recording their (complainants) statements under Section 164 CrPC and that they duly recognized all of them, including Fayyaz.

He denied that his late father, Mustafa Saeed, had friendship with defence counsel Malik Saleem and that the latter convinced him to appear before the court as witness. He said he was only complying with the court orders. He admitted that one of the defence counsel, Muhammad Yaqoob Khan, was his friend and that he provided him the unattested copies of the day-to-day proceedings of the in-camera trial of the Meerwala case.

Jatoi police station muharrar head-constable Akbar Ali deposed before the court as DW3. He said no case was registered against Molvi Razzaq during the last Muharram on the basis of information that he had links with the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.

A sub-inspector of the Muzaffargarh city police station, Muhammad Ashraf, while recording his statement as DW4 admitted that he brought out Fayyaz Husain from jail on July 14 last for interrogation in a case registered under sections 380 and 458 PPC. The case was registered against unidentified accused on Feb 10, 2002. He denied that he was directed by the authorities to replace the arrested Fayyaz with the actual accused. He admitted that no accused had so far been challaned in the case. He said Fayyaz was again sent to jail after two days of interrogation when his involvement in the case could not be established.

Earlier, when judge Malik Zulfiqar Ali resumed the trial of the case, the defence counsel informed the court that they wanted to give-up Muzaffargarh district Nazim Sultan Hinjra to appear as DW. The court granted them the permission.

It may be noted that Sultan Hinjra was summoned by the court on Saturday last on the request of the defence to clarify his interview published in a local Urdu daily on Aug 12 last in which he was quoted to have said that women had never come up to the panchayats to seek pardon.

It is learnt that the district Nazim reportedly denied outside the court on Thursday that he had even given any such interview. At this the defence thought it better to give-up him as DW. Earlier, Hinjra had appeared as court witness (CW1) in the Meerwala case.

Jatoi SHO Abdul Latif Chandia informed the court that Fayyaz Husain of Meerwala could not be traced to serve him the court notice to appear as defence witness to testify that a ‘nikah’ was actually solemnized between Abdul Khaliq and Mukhtaran Mai. Fayyaz of Meerwala is a cousin of Khaliq, and the defence was pleading that he had been replaced with Fayyaz being prosecuted wrongly. The court issued non-bailable warrants for Fayyaz Husain for Aug 16.

The other ‘witness’ of the ‘nikah’ was present in the court but the prosecution refused to cross-examine him separately. At this, the court directed him to reappear on Friday.

The court also issued bailable warrants for sub-inspector Ghulam Shabbir of the Jatoi police station for not turning up to the court on Thursday. He was directed to serve notice on Fayyaz Husain. The correspondent of a local daily was also summoned for Friday.

The judge adjourned the proceedings for Friday.

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