ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf and Advocate General Sindh Barrister Zameer Hussain Ghumro to assist it in deciding an application moved for the appointment of a joint investigation team (JIT) to probe the mysterious murder of Perween Rahman, Director of the Orangi Pilot Project, Karachi.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed asked the two law officers to appear in person before the court and assist it in issuing appropriate orders.

Ms Rehman was killed on March 13, 2013, in cold blood on way to home from her office when some assailants approached her car on a motorbike on the Main Manghopir Road near the Banaras Flyover and opened fire. She received bullet injuries in her neck. Then she was rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital by her driver where she succumbed to injuries.

Advocate Raheel Kamran Sheikh, on behalf of Aquila Ismail, the sister of Ms Rahman, pleaded before the court on Wednesday to appoint a JIT under well reputed, honest and efficient officials of some federal agency such as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) instead of the Sindh police.

Area police accused of manipulating investigation into Perween Rahman murder case

The JIT, the counsel argued, should interrogate SIP Raja Ulfat Hussain, the investigating officer in the case, and SIP Ashfaq Hussain Baloch, SHO of the Manghopir police station. Both the officers were allegedly found involved in manipulating the initial investigation.

Barrister Sheikh argued that the manner in which the criminal investigation proceeded raised serious doubts as to the genuineness with which the Sindh police wished to expose the perpetrators of this brutal murder.

The most recent report filed before the top court revealed that Inspector Mohammad Fareeduddin, the investigation officer, interrogated these police officers in a day and recorded their statements that they had not provided any sort of support to any accused in the case, the application contended.

The counsel took exception to the police report because the interrogation, which lasted one day, was not conducted by JIT. It is difficult to understand why JIT earlier constituted and jointly investigated other accused, did not interrogate these police officers when it has always been the case of the petitioners that the integrity and credibility of the Sindh police had been compromised in the conduct of the investigation since inception.

The perusal of the report also revealed that the statements made by both police officers do not square with the observations of the district and sessions judge (West), Karachi, in his inquiry report commissioned by the Supreme Court on April 12, 2014.

After examining SIPs Gulzar Ahmed, Ashfaq Hussain Baloch, Ameer Gondal, Masab Hussain, Roohul Amin and Raja Ulfat Hussain, the inquiry report had recorded a number of damning observations about the manner in which the Sindh police conducted the interrogation.

In the high-profile case of Ms Rehman’s murder, the application contended that police comes under tremendous pressure of detecting the crime and to lessen pressure they do not hesitate to manipulate the things.

To minimise the pressure, the police seems to have made manipulations, the application alleged, adding that the story of the mysterious encounter in which Qari Bilal was killed and a pistol was recovered does not inspire confidence because SIP Ashfaq Hussain Baloch, who claims to have killed Qari Bilal in the encounter, had stated that the victim sustained multiple firearm injuries but none was injured from the police side.

The other thing to be noted is that before making their escape good the three companions of Qari Bilal were shown to have set on fire the car they were travelling in, the application argued, adding that after encountering a huge police party in which their companion was killed they could not afford to waste time in setting the car on fire.

Likewise, evidence regarding the matching of empties recovered from the place of incident with the pistol allegedly recovered from Qari Bilal is also not free from manipulation, the application said.

Police had no clue about the involvement of Qari Bilal in the murder of Ms Rahman and there was no occasion for sending the empties and the pistol to the ballistic expert for matching. In order to minimise the chances of manipulation, crime empties were required to be sealed and sent immediately to the forensic laboratory without waiting for the recovery of the weapon.

When the empties were recovered it was a working day but these were sent to the forensic laboratory on March 15, 2013. There is no explanation for the delay, except the police wanted to manipulate the things, the application contended.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2018

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