HOURS before his scheduled hanging, Saulat Mirza’s video statement was telecast by TV channels in which he revealed details of his own gruesome criminal activities on the orders of the topmost leadership of the MQM.

These are indeed very serious crimes and call for severest penalties to their perpetrators, as well as to their abettors and those who ordered them to carry out these acts.

Coming to the legality of this video statement, it was opined by legal experts that it does not carry any legal value and is not admissible as an evidence in a court of law. Any such confessional statements, involving others in abetting of the crimes, has to be in the presence of a magistrate in a written form, duly signed by the person himself and countersigned by the magistrate. The written statement may further be corroborated by video statements or other evidences.

It was good to learn from a statement by Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan that a committee comprising officials of the federal and provincial governments, including magistrate (s), had been formed, to investigate the matter and record further statement of the condemned prisoner. In order to facilitate the same, the date of hanging was rightly postponed by 90 days. This was indeed a welcome step.

It, however, came as a big surprise to learn that the committee which was to carry out these tasks had been dissolved as a fresh death warrant for his hanging on April 1 had been received by the jail authorities.

It clearly means that the government has no resolve to probe the serious allegations levelled by the convict against the top leadership of the MQM, implying thereby not to curb the menace of targeted killings and other crimes in Karachi and Sindh.

Incidentally, not a single case of targeted killing or extortion has been reported from the city of Karachi ever since the telecast of Saulat Mirza’s video statement and the capture of target killers from the MQM headquarters in Azizabad.

Abdul Qayum Khan

Bahrain

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2015

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