KARACHI: The trial of Shahrukh Jatoi’s escape, the main convict in the Shahzeb murder case, has yet to commence as a judicial magistrate has sent a reference to a district court expressing his inability to conduct the trial, it emerged on Wednesday.

While the district court has transferred the case to another judicial magistrate for trial, the case has been fixed for March 31 for indictment.

Shahrukh Jatoi, who was sentenced to death in June 2013 by an antiterrorism court for killing 20-year-old Shahzeb in Defence Housing Authority, has been booked for allegedly escaping to Dubai on forged documents following the murder in December 2012.

Nawab Ali Jatoi, brother of Shahrukh, Mohammad Khurram, one of the directors of Sikandar Ali Jatoi’s group of companies, PIA officials Mahmood Sultan and Wasi Akhtar, known as protocol officials of Bilawal House, Sohail Ahmed, Muhammad Omer Dochki and Abu Bakar Dochki of a travel agency and others have also been charge-sheeted for allegedly helping Shahrukh escape from Karachi airport a couple of days after he had been booked in the Shahzeb murder case.

However, the suspects have not yet been indicted despite the passage of over three years.

The Federal Investigation Agency had submitted a final charge sheet in the case in March 2013 in the court of a judicial magistrate (Malir). The jail authorities had not produced Shahrukh in the court in the case pertaining to his escape till 2014. Thereafter, the provincial authorities notified that the case was to be tired inside the jail. Thus, the copies of the prosecution papers were provided to suspects as required under Section 265-C of the criminal procedure code, an obligatory procedure before the indictment last year. But the trial could not commence since the court remained vacant for around six months.

The case was fixed before the judicial magistrate (Malir), Sher Mohammad Kolachi, on March 3 for indictment. The magistrate sent a reference to a district and sessions court, stating that he could not conduct the trial because his law firm had earlier represented the accused when he was an advocate. The magistrate requested the district judge to transfer the case to another court for trial.

The district court transferred the case to the judicial magistrate (Malir), Nadir Khan Burdi, for trial. Now the case will be taken up on March 31 for indictment.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2016