April 16, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 9, 1429

KARACHI, April 15: The additional district and sessions judge-III, east, Hafeeza Usman, on Tuesday indicted an accused on charges of possessing illegal weapons and explosive material.

The accused, Hafiz Qasim Rasheed, son of Abdul Rasheed, pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. The court fixed April 30 as the next date of hearing and summoned all the prosecution witnesses to appear in court to record their statement.

According to the prosecution, Hafiz Qasim was arrested on July 21, 2002, from Jackson police limits for possessing illegal weapons and a case (FIR No 10/02) was registered against him under Section 13-D of the Arms Ordinance. During the initial interrogations, police claimed, the accused revealed that he had buried some explosive substance in a vacant plot in Gulshan-i-Sikandar, Keamari. The police dug up the plot and found 625 grams of explosive substance, followed by registration of another case (FIR No 11/02) against Hafiz Qasim under Section 4/5 of the Explosive Act read with Section 7 of Anti-terrorism Act.

The case has been pending in court since 2002 as the mandatory permission from the provincial home department has not been granted so far. The case was, however, being proceeded on the directions of a district and sessions judge, west.

“Section 7 of the Explosive Substance Act tells us that the permission of the provincial government is mandatory in all the cases registered under the Explosive Act,” the defence counsel, Maqbool-ur-Rahmen, told Dawn. In case of non-compliance, he added, all the proceedings would be treated as void.

He said if the district and sessions judge was authorised to give directions to the trial court in such cases then why the home department’s permission was required under Section 7 of Explosive Act. He pointed out that if the district judges were ‘empowered’ to grant permission to the trial courts why hundreds of such cases had been pending in courts for years due to non-issuance of the required notification from the home department.

Show-cause notice

The civil judge and judicial magistrate, central, Sohail Ahmed, re-issued a showcase notice for the investigation officer and directed him to submit a charge-sheet against the three policemen who had allegedly opened fire on two motorcyclists.

On April 4, the court had issued a notice to the investigation officer which he failed to comply with on Tuesday.

According to the prosecution, police constables Mohammad Imran, Arif Hussain and Salman Farsi had allegedly opened fire on Zubair Khan and Mohammad Saqib on March 21 near Sakhi Hasan, North Nazimabad. Both the youngsters were rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. Zubair succumbed to his injuries, while Saqib survived.

A case (FIR No 164/2008) was registered under Sections 302, 324/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code at Taimuria police station against the policemen. All the accused are in jail custody.