September 19, 2003	Friday	Rajab 21, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

PESHAWAR, Sept 18: The father of a man killed three weeks ago, has asked the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take a suo motu action against the murderer as the local police have doctored or killed all evidences in the case.

Shah Zaman’s father, Mohammad Zaman, said that his son was allegedly shot dead by the Pabbi police during a raid on the houses of Gulim and Shahid, suspects in a highway robbery.

He said that later he and his daughter-in-law were made to sign blank papers on which the police wrote a murder report charging Shahid, his neighbour, with the murder.

The incident sparked widespread riots in Pabbi town where people put Shah Zaman’s body on the main G. T. Road and blocked it for over three hours on Aug 28.

Mohammad Zaman in his appeal has stated that ASI Wasal Khan, who along with other policemen entered his house on the night of Aug 27, killed his son in the presence of his family.

According to him, his son was asleep when the police broke into their house. He was panicked and tried to scale the wall of their neighbour’s house, when ASI Wasal Khan took a shot at him from the courtyard of their house. Shah Zaman fell into Shahid’s house.

The police immediately entered Shahid’s house and took the body away.

Later during the day, in order to persuade the people to open the G. T. Road for traffic, the police officials, including SP Nowshera, ASP Pabbi and DIG Mardan, promised to register an FIR against ASI Wasal Khan, but that promise had not been fulfilled, Mohammad Zaman said in his appeal.

In fact, soon after the end of the protest the officials told newsmen that Shah Zaman’s family had registered an FIR against Shahid, he added.

He further said that being a poor and ignorant man, he was made by the police to sign blank papers twice before handing him over the body of his son at the Nowshera DHQ. “I have never made any statement to the police accusing Shahid of my son’s murder,” he declared.

On Sept 6, following intervention by some local elders, SI Hamshirullah took down his statement describing the actual event.

However, no action was taken, he complained.

Mohammad Zaman claimed that his son’s murder was not the result of mistaken identity, but a deliberate attempt to teach him a lesson for refusing to pay the ASI Rs200 as bhatta in Pabbi bazaar a few days earlier.

Mohammad Zaman appealed to the chief justice to proceed against ASI Wasal Khan as well as other police officials who had fraudulently changed the facts of the case to deny him justice.

He also appealed to be provided a suitable lawyer to represent his case in the court because he was a poor man.