KARACHI: An antiterrorism court ordered release of three accused facing trial in the Shershah scrap market carnage case after key prosecution witnesses failed to appear in court to testify against them.

The three accused — Lal Mohammad Magsi, Shafi Mohammad and Aslam Pervez — allegedly associated with one of the several criminal gangs operating in Lyari, along with their absconding accomplices were charged with allegedly killing 12 people and wounding several others in the Shershah scrap market in October 2010 over non-payment of protection money.

Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso of the ATC-I released the accused against a surety bond of Rs100,000 each for a period of three years and granted a chance to the prosecution for production of the abandoned eyewitnesses in court during the three-year period.

The court said that the accused persons would stand acquitted if the prosecution could not produce witnesses within the stipulated period.

The same court had reserved its verdict in the case around a year ago after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides. Later, the case was sent to the ATC-VI, which became vacant and it was shifted back to the ATC-I.

The prosecution had failed to bring some key witnesses of the case in court during the course of trial and said that they went into hiding due to fear and insecurity.

Earlier, in the final arguments the defence counsel had contended that there was no direct and circumstantial evidence since none of the prosecution witnesses deposed against the accused. The lawyer maintained that the identification parade of the accused through two eyewitnesses had no legal weight as the prosecution did not examine them before the trial court. He further argued that the administrative judge of the ATCs had released nine other suspects in the case earlier in 2011 since the complainant remained unable to identify them, adding that the case of his clients was also on the same footing and pleaded for their acquittal.

However, the special public prosecutor argued that the accused persons were nominated in the FIR and two eyewitnesses had rightly picked out the accused during the identification parade before a magistrate.

But he contended that since it was a high-profile case and the accused were hardened criminals, the eyewitnesses did not turn up before the trial court and went into hiding due to fear and insecurity as protection was not provided to them regardless of repeated court orders.

The prosecutor said that the judicial magistrate in his evidence informed the trial court about the identification of the accused by the witnesses. Therefore, he argued that their evidence was admissible as provided in Section 46 and 47 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat and Section 265-J of the criminal procedure code and sought capital punishment.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempted murder), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 at the Pak Colony police station on a complaint of a survivor, Mohammad Nafees.

Noor Mohammad alias Baba Ladla, Hameed alias Mula Raju, Rasheed and Imdad were the absconding accused in the case.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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