KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Wednesday confirmed the interim pre-arrest bail of three officials of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) in a case pertaining to the killing of a political activist in an alleged staged encounter.

Inspector Shahzad Ali Khan, Sub-Inspector Waqas Anwar and officer in charge of ACLC West zone Inspector Chaudhry Mohammad Saleem have been booked for allegedly abducting Asadullah Umrani and later killing him in a fake encounter within the remit of the Manghopir police station on Oct 15, 2018.

The matter was fixed before the judge of the ATC-XI, who is conducting the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, for framing of charge.

The suspects moved applications for confirmation of their interim pre-arrest bail granted on March 26.

After hearing arguments from both sides and examining the case record, the judge noted that eyewitnesses in their statements before the police did not give name of the applicants while they were examined by a judicial magistrate more than 20 days after the incident.

The judge further noted that the IO examined the applicants, who fully cooperated in the investigation and after obtaining an interim bail before arrest they did not misuse the same and regularly attended the court.

The judge observed that the applicants were government employees and serving in the police department, therefore, he confirmed their interim bail.

The court once again deferred the indictment of the suspects till July 8.

Earlier, defence counsel Mohammad Ilyas Khan argued that the applicants were innocent, but the complainant implicated them in the present case with mala fide intentions and with ulterior motive.

He contended that the case was investigated by different senior police officers and also an inquiry was conducted by the DIG of the Sindh Reserve Police regarding genuineness of the police encounter.

He maintained that even the investigating officer after thorough investigation recommended disposal of the case in B (false) class and pleaded to confirm his clients’ interim bail.

Complainant’s counsel Shahid Ali Soomro submitted that his client, Ali Akbar, duly nominated the police officials in the FIR for abducting and extrajudicially killing his brother, who was a local district president of the Pakistan Peoples Party-Shaheed Bhutto.

He added that during investigation eyewitnesses Allahdad, Siraj Ahmed and Usman recorded their statements before police under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2019