0
KARACHI, May 12: An anti-terrorism court indicted on Monday the chief of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and three others in the Mehmoodabad massacre case.
LJ chief Akram Lahori, Mohammed Azam, Attaullah and Malik Tasadduq were charged with killing six people and injuring five others in an attack on April 10, 2001, on Ali Murtaza Imambargah in Mehmoodabad.
Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch of the ATC-5 fixed Tuesday for recording the statements of the prosecution witnesses after the four Lashkar men denied their involvement in the case and pleaded “not guilty”.
Six faithful were killed and five injured when they were sprayed with a volleys of bullets during Maghreb prayers.
The police had registered a case against four unknown culprits, who had come on two bikes.
BOMB BLAST CASE: A worker of the defunct Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), being tried in a bomb blast case, denied on Monday the charges against him and said he was innocent.
Judge Feroz Mehmood Bhatti of the ATC-2, who is conducting trial inside the Central Prison, fixed May 14 for hearing final arguments from the prosecution and the defence after the statement of Sabir Waseem.
The SSP worker was charged with launching an anti-tank rocket (BM-107) that had pierced through the wall of the Commerce College on the Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed Road on Nov 23, 2001.
The defendant said that he had been implicated in the case by the police and that all the witnesses were policemen.
According to prosecution, represented by special public prosecutor Mazhar Qayyum, the SSP worker along with his absconding accomplice, Asif Ramzi, reached the college to fire rocket to target Americans staying at the second and third floor of Sheraton Hotel.
The two men, carrying the rocket and its locally-made launcher in a kit -bag, reached near the hotel on a motorbike around 9:30pm. The two positioned the launcher on the pushcart of a junk vendor.
It was alleged that while accused Waseem was still trying to position the launcher to the hotel, the rocket blew off due to a short-circuit, hitting the outer wall of the Commerce College. It landed in a classroom making an eight-inch hole in the wall.
According to bomb disposal squad, the device was an anti-tank rocket, weighing 25 kilograms with 10 to 12 kgs of explosive material.
Waseem was arrested red-handed during a shootout with the police following an attack on a prisoners’ van, which was carrying, among others, Dilawar Hussain, a worker of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.
During the interrogation, the police found the lower body of Waseem severely burnt. He disclosed before the police that he was himself injured while firing the rocket.
Two people, including a constable, Shakil, were killed when the prisoners’ van, also carrying some sectarian workers, was ambushed on February 28, this year near Bohra Pir within the limits of Nabi Bux police. Ramzi and two others, Ata ur Rahman and Naeem Bukhari, were declared absconders in this case.
