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| November 25, 2007 | Sunday | Ziqa’ad 14, 1428 |
KARACHI: Judge orders reinvestigation of couple’s murder case
KARACHI, Nov 24: The judicial magistrate-12, Central, Abdul Zahoor Chandio, on Saturday rejected the interim charge-sheets in the double murder case of a newly-wed couple and directed the SSP investigations, Central, to re-investigate the case and submit the final charge-sheet at the next hearing, scheduled for Nov 30.
Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem and his bride Beenish were found dead under mysterious circumstances the morning after their wedding in their North Nazimabad apartment in the limits of the Taimuria police on Aug 11.
The case (FIR 391/07) was registered at the Taimuria police station under Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code. On Oct 27 the investigation officer (IO) Khalid Khan of the New Karachi police station had submitted an interim charge-sheet to the court, in which he nominated Shaikh Abdul Majeed, the father of the deceased groom, as the main accused in the case.
Referring to Mr Abdul Majeed’s interview on a TV channel, the IO said that the accused had himself admitted his presence up to 5am in the couple’s room, adding that Beenish was also murdered within two to three minutes — between 4am and 5am — by breaking her jaw and covering her nose and mouth with a pillow.
Earlier, the former IO in the case, Mohammad Ashraf of the Taimuria police station, submitted three progress reports to the court on different dates. But following a court order, police high-ups assigned the case to senior IO Khalid Khan.
On Sept 20, Abdul Majeed, through his counsel, submitted an application to the district and sessions judge, Central, Abdul Maalik under Section 22-A(6) (iii) (iv) of the CrPC. The application had requested the transfer of the case’s investigation to any other zone, citing his lack of confidence in IO Ashraf. Following his nomination in the case, Abdul Majeed had rejected the police version and expressed his dissatisfaction over the investigation process and said he had already requested the court to shift the investigation from zone west to any other zone.
The special judge of the anti-corruption court Karachi, Syed Gul Munir Shah, on Saturday adjourned till Dec 7 the hearing of a corruption case against the officials of the market committee of the New Sabzi Mandi on the request of the defence counsel.
A member of the defence lawyers’ panel, through an application, requested the court for adjournment due to the absence of senior defence counsel Nawab Sheikh.
The administrator of the market committee G.M. Chakrani, secretary of the market committee Saeed-ul-Hasan Zaidi, the director-general of the Sindh government’s agriculture extension Naeem Ahmed Korejo and Ashiq Hussein, a section officer of the PMP, agriculture department, government of Sindh, are facing charges in the land scam that involved millions of rupees.
The court also directed the technical officer of the anti-corruption establishment to appear in court in order to answer technical queries regarding the land scam case.
According to the prosecution, the case was registered on the basis of an inquiry into a complaint (No 249/07) of the anti-corruption establishment. The men are accused of having converted 164 amenity plots into shops. Under the Karachi master plan, these plots had been reserved for a fire station, a service station, a weighbridge and lavatories.
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