0
KARACHI, June 11: A prosecution witness identified on Wednesday the two alleged killers of a lawyer who was shot dead in a courtroom of the Sindh High Court in April.
Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the Anti-terrorism Court No. 3 put off the hearing till Thursday after Ameer Aslam, a paralegal, deposed in the court.
Ameer stated that he had seen accused Behram Khan and sub-inspector Peer Bukhsh killing Ashraf Khan around 2:45pm on April 15.
The eye-witness, who was also cross-examined by the defence counsel, deposed that he was talking to advocate Ashraf when accused Behram, holding a newspaper in his hand, and Peer Bux, in a police uniform, entered the courtroom.
He said Behram took out a pistol wrapped in the newspaper, and asked Ashraf Khan if he was Qurban Ali Chauhan. The PW stated that the lawyer told the armed man that he was not advocate Chauhan.
However, accused Peer Bukhsh told Behram that the victim was Qurban Ali Chauhan and he opened fire on him.
Witness Muslim submitted that the two accused had immediately fled the courtroom and he also ran after them raising an alarm.
He said the accused were caught and he saw them sitting in a police mobile van.
Qamar Ahmed Shaikh, a former district and sessions judge, appeared for the defence of the accused.
REMANDED: Two suspects, who were arrested for their alleged involvement in bomb blasts, were given in police custody for interrogation.
Suspect Mohammed Riaz, who was seriously injured in the blast near Aladin Park on Monday, was given in police custody till June 16 by Judicial Magistrate, Basheer Channa. The suspect was not brought to the court as he was hospitalised.
The second suspect, Mehmood Ali, was produced before the judicial magistrate, Javed Iqbal, who remanded his custody to police till June 14 in case of Korangi police.
Earlier, Justice Shabbir Ahmed of High Court of Sindh, also the administrative judge of Anti-Terrorism Courts’ for Karachi division, rejected a request for remand of the accused, adds APP.
The AJ directed the police officials to obtain remand of accused Riaz and his brother Mohammed Ali from the concerned judicial magistrates.
Earlier, the investigating officers of Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Korangi police sought physical remand of the accused for 14 days to carry out investigation against the accused.
Riaz was arrested by the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police after he lost his left hand in a blast on Monday last. Two more indigenous bombs were recovered on his pointation.
The AJ after perusing the remand papers directed the police that the remand of the accused, Riaz, be obtained from the JM at this stage.
Regarding remand of the co-accused, Mohammed Ali, the AJ held in that the case is not triable by an ATC as possession of explosives do not fall under AT Act and, therefore, his remand also be obtained from the concerned JM.
ADJOURNED: Judge, accountability court (ACC-I) Parkash Lal, on Wednesday adjourned framing of charges against Muzamil Niaz and Javed Burki of PACO till July 3.
According to the reference, the accused had swindled millions of rupees, given to the Pakistan Automobile Corporation for building multi-purpose Yaqoob trucks for use by the armed forces. Khawaja Naveed, advocate, represented the accused while Shaukat Hayat represented the NAB.
