April 06, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

KARACHI, April 5: An anti-terrorism court recorded on Saturday the statement of a judicial magistrate in a case pertaining to the kidnapping and murder of an eight-year-old girl.

The judicial magistrate, Irshad Hussain Qureshi testified that police had produced the accused, Tanveer Ahmed, in his court and he recoded the accused’s confessional statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code after completing the legal formalities.

Judge Ghulam Ali Samtio of the ATC-I, who is conducting the trial, adjourned the hearing till April 8 when other prosecution witnesses would be examined.

According to the prosecution, Tanveer Ahmed had kidnapped an eight-year-old girl, Iqra, on Feb 25, 2007 from the limits of Pakistan Bazar police station when she was playing outside her home. The accused, who was also brother-in-law of the girl’s father, took her to his home and demanded a ransom of Rs0.5 million from the victim’s father Saleem. The accused later allegedly killed the girl and chopped the body into pieces. The police had traced the accused through the calls he had made on the complainant’s cellular phone and arrested him.

During the initial interrogation the accused revealed that he had buried different parts of the victim’s body in Saddar and Mochko areas. The police had raided the said locations and disinterred the parts.

A case (FIR No 74/2007) was lodged on the complaint of the victim’s father at Pakistan Bazaar police station under Sections 356-A, 302 and 376 of Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7(A), (E), (I) of Anti-terrorism Act.