October 25, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 25, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 24: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday rejected an application for the transfer of a case pertaining to the kidnapping of a four-year-old boy for ransom to a regular court.

The accused, through their counsel, submitted an application under Section 23 (power to transfer cases to regular courts) of the Anti-terrorism Act 1997 to the court arguing that the case did not fall under the jurisdiction of the anti-terrorism court.

The judge, Annand Ram Hotwani of ATC-III, pronounced the verdict after recording arguments from both sides.

The prosecution said Kashif, Manzoor and Rubina had allegedly kidnapped four-year-old Hammad from the limits of Frere police station on June 24. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of Rs15 million from the victim’s family. Later they reportedly reduced the amount of ransom to Rs1,050,000. However, the Anti-Violent Crime Unit and the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee teams conducted a raid in Malir area and arrested the suspects and recovered the kidnapped boy from their custody.

A case (FIR No155/08) was registered at Frere police station under Section 365-A/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

Judgment reserved

Meanwhile, the same court on Friday reserved its order till Nov 6 on an application moved under the Section 23 of the Anti-Terrorism Act for the transfer of a murder case to a regular court.

The suspect’s counsel argued that the case did not fall under the jurisdiction of the anti-terrorism court since no ransom was demanded. The special public prosecutor did not oppose the plea.

A man, Jahanzeb, was charged with kidnapping his cousin, Nawaz Ali, on Sept 19 in Boat Basin area. The victim’s body was found on the next day in Clifton area.

The investigators claimed that during the initial interrogation the suspect disclosed that he had called his cousin, Nawaz, at Clifton beach on Sept 19, and killed him after giving him a heavy dose of tranquillisers in a juice, adding that the deceased was stated to be fond of the sister of the suspect and used to send her SMS, which annoyed Jahanzeb.

A case (FIR No392/08) was registered under Sections 365 and 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code at Boat Basin police station on the complaint of the father of the deceased, Mr Iftikhar.