January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

KARACHI, Jan 4: Additional district and sessions judge, East, Rana Zaki Shamsi on Friday indicted the moazzin of a mosque on charges of killing a 12-year-old boy in a mosque in Shah Faisal Colony.

Hafiz Manzoor Ahmed, who was accused of the crime, pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. The judge summoned all prosecution witnesses to appear before the court in order to record their statements on the next hearing.

The murdered boy, Mohammed Anas, belonged to Muzaffargarh in Punjab and had been staying in Karachi with his maternal grandfather Qari Abdul Rehman, who teaches at a madressah adjacent to Masjid-i-Aqsa.

According to the prosecution, the body of the student was found hanging in Shah Faisal Colony’s Masjid-i-Aqsa on Oct 30, 2007.

The police suspected that it was not a case of suicide, as it appeared to be, but that the boy had been murdered.

The Shah Fasial Colony police registered a case (FIR No 294/2007) under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code against Hafiz Manzoor Ahmed, the moazzin of the mosque. He was arrested on Nov 1 and sent into jail custody.

The investigation officer of the case, sub-inspector Ghulam Mustafa Shah of the Shah Fasial Colony police station, submitted a charge-sheet to the court of judicial magistrate-I, East, on Nov 15. In the charge-sheet, the IO said that the accused had tried to sexually abuse the boy. Upon the boy’s resistance, the accused killed him.

Judicial magistrate, East, Maqbool Ahmed Memon, has already recorded the confessional statement of the accused.

About 14 prosecution witnesses, including Mohammed Naveed Akthar, Qari Abdul Rehman, Noman, Raees Noori, Dr Abdul Jabbar (the medico-legal officer at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre), sub-inspector Yusuf Niazi and assistant sub-inspector Amin Memon, will testify on the next hearing, which the court has fixed for Jan 21.