KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Saturday remanded three policemen in police custody in a robbery case.

Sub-inspector Hamza Khan, head constable Mazhar Hussain and constable Mohammed Ilyas have been booked for their alleged involvement in a department store robbery in Defence Housing Authority on Oct 22.

The investigating officer produced the suspects before the court for remand and informed it that an unidentified suspect broke into the store and brought out a locker and, in the meantime, a patrol van arrived at the store and instead of arresting the robber the policemen helped him to shift the safe to the police van.

A closed-circuit television camera installed outside the store captured the incident and after arresting the policemen, Rs250,000 cash and stolen mobile phone cards worth Rs90,000 were recovered, the investigating officer said. He sought their custody for further questioning and the arrest of their accomplice.

Judicial magistrate (south) Mumtaz Ali Solangi handed the suspects over to the police on physical remand till Oct 27.

A case was registered under Sections 380 (threat in dwelling-house, etc.), 457 (lurking house-trespass or house- breaking by night in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of the store manager, Rafiq Memon, at the Darakhshan police station.

Lawyer’s killing

An anti-terrorism court on Saturday remanded a suspect to prison in a case pertaining to the murder of Advocate Syed Mubarak Raza Kazmi, son-in-law of prominent scholar Allama Talib Johari, in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

Mohammad Naeem Khan along with his accomplices was booked for allegedly killing Mr Kazmi on July 23.

After the expiry of the remand, the police produced the suspect, Naeem Khan, in court. He was sent to prison on judicial remand till Nov 6.

Judge of the ATC-I Bashir Ahmed Khoso also asked the investigating officer to file an investigation report.

According to the prosecution, the 60-year-old lawyer was gunned down while he was buying fruit at a bazaar in Block 13-D. A case was later registered at the PIB Colony police station.

Mohammad Idrees, Shahbaz and Mohammad Ali were shown as absconders in the case, while Amir Khalil alias Nomi was in custody. The Garden police had arrested Naeem Khan in an explosive substance case and his arrest was made in the present case on Oct 10.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2014