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| November 29, 2007 | Thursday | Ziqa’ad 18, 1428 |
KARACHI: Order reserved on bail plea of groom’s father: Newly-wed couple’s death
KARACHI, Nov 28: Additional District and Sessions Judge Tasneem Sultana heard on Wednesday the defence counsel’s arguments on a pre-arrest bail application of Shaikh Abdul Majeed and reserved an order for pronouncement till Dec 3.
According to the prosecution, Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem, the son of the applicant, and his bride Beenish were found dead under mysterious circumstances the next morning of their wedding night in their North Nazimabad apartment in Taimuria police limits on Aug 11. A case (FIR No391/07) was registered under Section-302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
Earlier, the application for bail before arrest could not be heard on Nov 14 as the additional district and sessions judge, central, Tasneem Sultana, was on leave. The court had fixed the next hearing for Nov 28.
Judicial Magistrate-12, Central, Abdul Zahoor Chandio, who is conducting hearings of double murder case, rejected the interim charge-sheets submitted by the investigation officer in the case on Nov 24 and directed the SSP investigation, central, to reinvestigate the case and submit a final charge-sheet at the next hearing, scheduled for Nov 30.
On Sept 20, Mr Majeed through his counsel submitted an application to the district and sessions judge, central, Abdul Maalik, seeking transfer of the case’s investigation to any other zone, citing his lack of confident in Investigation Officer Mohammad Ashraf of Taimuria police station.
Though IO Ashraf had submitted three progress reports to the court on different dates, police high-ups following a court’s order assigned the case to Khalid Khan of New Karachi police station.
On Oct 27, investigation officer Khalid Khan submitted a progress report to Judicial Magistrate Abdul Zahoor Chandio, nominating the father of the deceased groom as the main accused in the double murder case. Referring to Mr Majeed’s interview on a TV channel, the IO stated that Mr Majeed had admitted his presence in the couple’s room till 5am while Beenish was murdered between 4am and 5am by breaking her jaws and covering her nose and mouth with a pillow.
Following his nomination in the case, Mr Majeed rejected the police version and expressed his dissatisfaction over the investigation process. He said he had already requested the court to shift the investigation from zone west to any other zone.
It may be recalled here that Judge Tasneem Sultana had earlier granted a pre-arrest bail to Mr Majeed on Oct 23.
The defence counsel had argued that police had neither arrested the murderer nor produced a charge-sheet in the case so far. He stated that police were rather bent upon harassing the father of the deceased by conducting raids for his arrest just to save their face.
The police were bound under Section-173 of the CrPC to submit investigation details within 17 days, he said, adding that the charge-sheet had not been produced in court despite lapse of more than two months.
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