04 December 2004	Saturday	21 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Dec 3: An anti-terrorism court put off on Friday the hearing of a multiple murder case after the prosecution examined its last two witnesses.

Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the ATC-3 fixed Monday for the statement of accused Riaz after recording the statements of judicial magistrate Mohammed Iqbal Awan and investigation officer Inspector Mohammad Ashraf Awan, who were also cross-examined by defence counsel Jaffer Ali.

The case pertained to the murder of a woman, her two young daughters, her son, and their neighbour on June 11 in her house in Surjani Town. The four women were also gang-raped allegedly by four bandits.

Earlier, on July 15, 1999 the then judge of the anti-terrorism court, Mohammad Javed Alam, had prosecuted three accused for the murder of Shamim, her daughters, Shahnaz and Asifa, her son Maqsood, and their neighbour Momal.

The ATC had sentenced Amjad Khan alias Amjad Lodhi to death and acquitted the third accused Rehan. However, later the High Court of Sindh set aside the sentence on the appeals of the convicts.

The court also acquitted accused Amjad and Rehan of the charge of possessing illegal arms. According to the prosecution, a revolver and a dagger were recovered from accused Amjad and Rehan respectively.

The magistrate submitted that he had conducted the identification parade of the accused and prosecution witness Hoot Khan had identified the accused among a set of dummies.

He stated that he had also recorded the statement of PW Hoot Khan under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Hoot Khan, the father of victim Momal, appeared as prime witness as he stated to have seen the accused going into the victim's house on the day of incident.

The investigation officer stated that the accused was arrested in another offence and he had disclosed about his involvement in the instant case during the course of investigation.

He said that he had also recorded an extra-judicial confessional statement of the accused on a video tape. He said the accused also led the police to the recovery of some of the looted gold ornaments.

JUDGMENT RESERVED: An anti-terrorism court reserved judgment on Friday in double murder case against Amir Khan, general-secretary of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM-H), and others after hearing the concluding arguments of both sides, adds PPI.

MQM-H general-secretary and its activist Muhammad Tariq are charged with killing two activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement on June 23, 2003. Vehemently opposing the prosecution case, defence counsel Khawaja Naveed Ahmed argued that his client, who was general-secretary of a political party, was implicated in false case on behalf of rival party due to political enmity.

He contended that the FIR was registered with delay of nine days and during that none of prosecution witnesses or complainant implicated his client in above-mentioned killing. Besides, he said all witnesses were interested and activists of the rival party.

Defence counsel further submitted that no weapon, used in alleged firing incident, was recovered by police. The court was prayed to release Amir Khan from the killing charges.