ISLAMABAD: After a decade, the capital police on Thursday managed to arrest the proclaimed offender wanted in connection with the murder of the Bari Imam Shrine’s caretaker.

The newly established Special Investigation Unit of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) received information about the offender hiding in a building on Chakri Road, Rawalpindi from where he was arrested.

He was the main accused in the murder which took place on February 15, 2005 as he had a dispute with the caretaker Raja Akram over the control of the shrine.

Mr Akram and his guard were killed in an ambush in a market behind the shrine. One of the attackers was also killed in the attack and six others were injured.

During initial investigation, he told the police that following the murder he fled to Peshawar where he hid for a year. Later, he said, he moved to Rawalpindi where he kept changing his hideouts.

The police said he was spotted and arrested from Chakri Road where he was earning his livelihood from peddling drugs. Following his arrest, he was produced in the court of a magistrate and taken into police custody.

The police said that three people were arrested in connection with the murder of Raja Akram, two were killed in a police encounter in Margallah Hills near Pir Sohawa on April 30, 2005 while eight others escaped.

Later, this claim of the police was rejected by the relatives of the proclaimed offenders who staged a protest at Pims on May 1, 2005 when the autopsies were being carried out.

The relatives asserted that it was a staged encounter as the offenders had surrendered to the police in Mansehra and the police brought them to the location in Margallah Hills and staged an encounter, killing them.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2015

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