KARACHI: A judicial magistrate referred on Wednesday a case pertaining to the murder of a teenager against nine officials of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell to an antiterrorism court.

After approving a scrutiny note of the prosecution that the crime came within the ambit of the antiterrorism law, a judicial magistrate (South) returned an interim charge sheet in the murder case of 19-year-old student Intizar Ahmed back to the investigating officer asking him to file it before the administrative judge of antiterrorism courts, Karachi.

The IO had come up with an interim charge sheet last week and a team of the prosecution submitted it in court with a scrutiny note.

The prosecutors said in the note that the offence had created fear and insecurity in the people and recommended that sections 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 be incorporated in the case and it be sent to an antiterrorism court for trial.

The then station house officer of the ACLC, Tariq Mehmood, inspectors Azhar Ahsan and Tariq Raheem, head constables Ghulam Abbas and Shahid; constables Ghulam Abbas, Fawad Khan, Mohammad Daniyal and Bilal Rasheed were booked for allegedly killing the 19-year-old student on the night of Jan 13 in Defence Housing Authority.

IO Aziz Shaikh of the Counter-Terrorism Department named eight officials as accused persons in the interim report, but left out head constable Ghulam Abbas contending that he was not present at the time of the incident.

The name of Madiha Kayani, who was travelling with the victim at the time of the incident but quietly disappeared from the crime scene instead of reporting it to the police, was placed in the list of prosecution witnesses. The interim report was also silent about the then ACLC SSP, Muqaddas Haider.

The IO said in the report that Daniyal and Bilal had opened fire on Intizar’s care while six other ACLC officials were present at the crime scene and charge-sheeted on charges of common intention and abetment.

However, public prosecutors Khair Mohammad Khattak and Abdul Qadeer Memon scrutinised the investigation report and observed that the incident had created fear and insecurity in the people as the victim was unarmed and the ACLC men resorted to unprovoked firing that resulted in his death.

They further said that the victim was not shifted to hospital in a timely manner while a video of the incident also went viral on social media that created terror in the public and, therefore, it was a case of terrorism.

The prosecutors recommended that Sections 6/7 of the ATA be incorporated in the FIR and the case be sent to an antiterrorism court for trial.

The FIR said that unidentified persons intercepted the victim’s car on Khayaban-i-Ittehad in DHA on the night of Jan 13 and killed him. The case was registered on a complaint of the deceased’s father under Sections 302 (punishment for premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Darakhshan police station.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2018