KARACHI, April 2: Justice M. Ashraf Laghari of the Sindh High Court has ordered the DIG Police to conduct an inquiry into raids by two SIs in violation of the law and a citizen’s right to privacy in a city locality.
Ms Rozina complained through a petition that ‘inebriated’ SIs Chand Khan Niazi and Zafar Iqbal of the Baghdadi police raided her house without any justification, harassed her and decamped with Rs 8,000 in cash and other valuables.
The judge asked the DIG to entrust the inquiry to an officer not below the rank of a DSP.
A case be registered against the police officials concerned under intimation to the court if allegations made by the petitioner were found true.
A report be submitted to the SHC registrar even if the allegations proved false, the court ordered.
A provincial government law officer assured the court that the petitioner would not be harassed and the petition was disposed of with an order for inquiry.
BAIL ALLOWED: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday granted bail in the sum of Rs 2 million to a petitioner who challenged his conviction by an accountability court.
Allah Dino Daheri, a former engineer in the communication and works department, was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau in 2000 for acquiring assets he could not account for on the basis of his known sources of income.
A reference was filed and an accountability court held him guilty of the charge.
He was sentenced to seven years’ jail and a fine of Rs 50 million. He challenged the conviction in the high court and sought his release on bail, pending hearing of his appeal.
The main ground for bail urged by his counsel, Ikramullah Rana, before the appellate bench, comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Rehmat Hussain Jaferi, was that he had already served out his sentence if given the benefit of remissions.
Citing Sattar Deiro’s case, he submitted that a convict by the NRB was admitted to interim bail on the same ground, though the question whether or not NAB convicts are entitled to remissions was still pending before a five-member bench of the Supreme Court.
JUDGMENT RESERVED: A division bench of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday reserved judgment on an appeal moved by a convict, sentenced to death twice by an ATC for murder of a property dealer and gangrape of his wife, along with two other accused.
Waris, a rangers havildar, visited the flat of Munawar Ali, an estate agent in Gulistan-i-Jauhar’s Classic View Apartments on June 9, 2001, with Naeem and Khalid. They got hold of Munawar and shot him dead instantaneously. After the murder, they gangraped his wife, Rubina Kanwal, and attacked her with a knife, and slit her throat.
The case was tried by an anti-terrorist court. Naeem and Khalid, who fled the scene immediately after the offence and could not be apprehended by police, and were declared as absconders.
Another co-accused, Maqsood, an estate agent who had accompanied the culprits to Munawar’s flat, was found innocent as no role was assigned to him in the offence.
Waris was tried and condemned to death twice for murder and gangrape under the penal code and the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance. He was also sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for inflicting grievous injuries on Rubina Kanwal.
The bench, which consisted of Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Rehmat Hussain Jaferi, reserved judgment on Waris’s appeal after hearing Advocate Khwaja Naveed Ahmed for the appellant and Assistant Advocate-General Habib Ahmed for the prosecution.
HEARING ADJOURNED: Justice Ata-ur-Rahman of the Sindh High Court adjourned till April 8 hearing of a petition against alleged detention of an accused in US journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder case.
The petitioner, sister of alleged detainee Ataur Rehman alias Naeem Bukhari, submitted that plainclothes policemen took away her brother six months back, and since then she had not heard of him.
In their comments, the Sindh police stated that the accused was neither arrested nor detained by them. However, he was required in six criminal cases registered by them. The police said other accused in the Pearl murder case were arrested and prosecuted and there was no reason to keep a co-accused in custody without trial.
