KARACHI, Dec 9: A customs inspector was taken from courtroom to jail on Friday to serve life imprisonment for killing his officer. A division bench of the Sindh High Court earlier heard an appeal against the acquittal of customs inspectors Raja Farhat Iqbal, Raja Yusuf Habib and sepoy Abu Bakar by a sessions court in the notorious murder case of customs superintendent Salim Farooqui.
The acquittal of Raja Yusuf and Abu Bakar was maintained while Raja Farhat was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was also ordered to pay Rs 200,000 as compensation to the bereaved dependants and legal heirs.
Salim Farooqui, their victim, was superintendent in charge of the customs anti-smuggling wing. Raja Farhat, who was posted in the wing as a preventive officer, invited the superintendent to dinner at his bungalow near the Customs Officers Colony, Keamari, on April 27, 2001. During a conversation marked by heated exchanges, he took out his personal licensed pistol and pumped bullets into his guest.
The culprit put Salim Farooqui’s body in the victim’s own official car and drove to his relative and fellow preventive officer Raja Yusuf’s residence. When the victim’s brother, Anwar Farooqui, went to Raja Farhat’s residence to enquire about his brother, he found it deserted and locked. He then went to Raja Yusuf to ascertain the whereabouts of his brother. He was told that Raja Farhat and Salim Farooqui had gone somewhere and would return next morning (on April 5).
According to the prosecution, Raja Yusuf arranged the escape of Raja Farhat and he and customs sepoy Abu Bakar, who worked as domestic servant at his residence, threw Salim Farooqui’s body into a vacant plot in the Defence Housing Authority, from where it was recovered by police on April 28, 2001.
