June 11, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1429

KARACHI, June 10: The Sindh High Court stayed on Tuesday the anti-terrorism court proceedings in a kidnap for ransom case against ‘Shahid Rind’ identified as ‘Bahadur Brohi’ in a dubious identification parade.

The counsel for the accused, Adnan Karim, submitted before a division bench comprising Justices Rana M. Shamim and Ghulam Dastgir A. Shahani that he had been malafidely involved in a blind first information report for ulterior motives after the proceedings against him were quashed by the high court on October 23, 2007.

He was picked up by the CID police at Hub in July 2007 while travelling in a bus on the suspicion of being a brother of the notorious offender, Mashooq Brohi.

He was subsequently nominated as accused in several FIRs to cover up his illegal arrest and detention, added the counsel.

The lawyer said police had discharged him in two of the three FIRs for want of evidence under Section 169 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

He was not named as an accused in the only case still being tried against him. The case involved kidnapping of four persons in the Sachal police station jurisdiction.

The incident had no eye witness and remained ‘unseen’. Nor does anybody know who the victims of kidnapping were. He was shown to have been arrested in the case on October 12, 2007, while already in custody. He told the police several times that he was not Bahadur Brohi, brother of Mashooq Brohi, but Shahid Rind, son of Ghulam Hussain Rind. His protestations, however, fell on deaf ears.

An identification parade, the counsel stated, was held in May, by which time the accused had received adequate exposure on the electronic media to be identified even by a stranger.

A person claiming to be a victim of kidnapping identified him as ‘kidnapper Bahadur Brohi’. The parade was held on jail premises and he was allegedly shown to the alleged victim a day earlier to eliminate any margin of error in his identification. Appearing for the state, Additional Advocate-General Mushtaq Abbasi submitted that Shahid Rind’s petition should be admitted to regular hearing as the grounds pressed by him required consideration.

First, he was not named in the FIR and the incident remained ‘unseen’. Nobody knows the identity of the four kidnap victims.

The only evidence against the accused was an identification parade of highly questionable legal validity, the AAG said.

Admitting the petition and issuing notice to the prosecution for a date in office, the bench stayed the proceedings. The accused has also moved for grant of bail and his application is fixed for hearing by an SHC bench for June 13.