November 09, 2008	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 10, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 8: The additional district and sessions judge, East, on Saturday adjourned the hearing of Mir Murtaza Bhutto murder case till Nov 24. The court also deferred pronouncement of its order on an acquittal plea moved by a co-accused, Shakeeb Qureshi, to Nov 14.

Murtaza Bhutto was killed along with his close aide, Ashique Hussain Jatoi, and six other workers and supporters of his PPP-Shaheed Bhutto group in a shootout with police near his residence in Clifton on Sept 20, 1996.

Several senior police officials including Shakeeb Qureshi, Shoaib Suddle, Wajid Durrani, Masood Sharif, Shahid Hayat, Rai Mohammed Tahir, Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani and Agha Mohammed Jameel were nominated as accused in the case.

Tessori’s remand

A civil judge and judicial magistrate, West, on Saturday sent Mohammad Kamran Tessori, a gold trader, to jail custody till Nov 18 in a case pertaining to an alleged shootout with the police.

The investigation officer of the case sought extension in his physical remand but Tessori’s counsel argued that the police had not yet submitted the progress report of the police remand given on Nov 6. He maintained that his client was implicated in the case on political grounds.

Kamran Tessori is facing the charges of his involvement in a case pertaining to the proposed Gold City project in the interior Sindh for which former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim had allotted him around 80 acres allegedly from an originally historical graveyard. An FIR (No.07/2008) was registered against him in Badin district. However, police claimed, Tessori managed to escape form custody.

The prosecution stated that on July 25, the police had received information about the presence of Kamran Tessori, Mohammad Imran Tessori and Mohammad Khalid Siddiqui at the Hawkesbay beach. A police party spotted the suspects, travelling in a white car, and asked them to stop but they allegedly opened fire at the police party and managed to flee.

The Docks police registered a case (FIR112/08) on the behalf of state.