April 22, 2006	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, April 21: The Supreme Court on Friday reprimanded Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Islamabad, and directed him to produce concrete evidence of the murder of a taxi driver before the court within a week.

The Supreme Court bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, was hearing a complaint of Naseem Shahid, the widow of the taxi driver, Shahid Nawaz.

Expressing displeasure at the investigation, the court rejected the police report. The investigation report contains nothing to help proceed the case, the bench observed and granted a week’s time to the police to produce concrete evidence. The case will be taken up again on April 28.

The chief justice also observed that SP Investigation Ishfaq Ahmad Khan, who had been entrusted the case, was not fit for police service.

In the report, SSP Sikandar Hayat submitted that Naseem Shahid was involved in investigation but she failed to produce any concrete evidence. At this, the chief justice observed that it was not the job of the complainant to produce evidence rather the police had to dig it out.

The SSP said that an investigation team led by SP Investigation Ishfaq Ahmad Khan, and comprising DSP Jameel Ahmad Hashmi, Deputy Superintendent Police Industrial Area Circle, Inspector Altaf Aziz Khatak, SHO Sabzi Mandi, SI Manzoor Ahmad and SI Shaukat Ali were investigating the case.

The SSP told the apex court that four accused nominated in the case had also been arrested the same day along with constable Muhammad Abid of Islamabad police.

At the last hearing the apex court had ordered the police to arrest constable Abid for his alleged involvement in the murder early this year.

In her petition, Naseem Shahid, 24, who embraced Islam eight years ago, had accused that police were reluctant to register an FIR of the murder of her husband.

Her tent house was also set on fire in February 2005, to teach her a lesson for changing her faith. The fire also killed her five-year-old daughter and seriously injured her two minor sons, her husband and herself.

In her complaint, Naseem Shahid contended that constable Abid came to her house on February 13, 2006, when they were dining and took Shahid in his taxicab. Mr Shahid had to depose before an anti-terrorist court on February 16 in connection with a case relating to the burning of his tent house.

The next morning, police informed Ms Shahid that her husband had wounded seriously in a road accident but when she rushed to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), she learnt that her husband was gunned down in the wee hours of February 14.

Contrary to her statement, SP Investigation Ashfaq Ahmed and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Industrial Area Circle Jamil Hashmi in the report claimed that the murder was in fact a sequel to a robbery a case of which had also been registered on an application of constable Abid.