KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Monday dismissed bail applications filed by three former officials of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell in a case pertaining to the murder of a teenager in an alleged ‘staged’ encounter.

The judge of ATC-XIII, who is conducting the trial inside the central jail, pronounced verdict after hearing arguments on the bail pleas from both sides.

The judge observed that admittedly the prosecution had submitted charge sheet recently in the case and no prosecution witness was yet examined.

It further mentioned that from the perusal of the material available on record it appeared that due to illegal and unlawful act of the accused nominated in the case a young boy aged about 19 years had lost his life without any fault.

The judge noted that reasonable ground existed to believe that the accused had committed the alleged offence, which fell within the ambit of prohibitory clause of Section 497 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Therefore, the court recalled interim pre-arrest bail granted earlier to accused Tariq Raheem, the then inspector and also dismissed post-arrest bail pleas of the then SHO Tariq Mehmood and constable Fawad Sherwani, who were already in judicial custody.

The judge summoned the witnesses on June 23 to record their testimonies.

Eight ACLC officials, including the then SHO Tariq Mehmood, inspectors Azhar Ahsan and Tariq Raheem, head constable Shahid and constables Ghulam Abbas, Fawad Khan, Mohammad Daniyal and Bilal Rasheed have been charged with killing 19-year-old student Intizar Ahmed on the night of Jan 13 in Defence Housing Authority.

Earlier, Advocate Aamir Mansoob Qureshi, the defence counsel for the undertrial policemen Tariq Mehmood and Tariq Raheem, argued that their clients were innocent and falsely implicated in the case, as the complainant, who was father of the victim, had not nominated any of them in the FIR.

They added that all the police officials, except constables Daniyal and Bilal, on orders of their high-ups left their offices on the day of the incident after making due entries to the roznamcha, as several cars bearing government number plates had been snatched within the remits of the Defence, Darakhshan and Clifton police stations, including a vehicle of a senior judge of the Supreme Court from the jurisdiction of the Gizri police station.

The defence counsel further argued that according to information all the cars had been snatched by four unknown culprits, who were using a white Toyota Grande, adding that their clients saw a white Toyota Grande car with a girl sitting inside and allowed the car to go.

However, constables Daniyal and Bilal, who had not made entries in the roznamcha in violation of the standard operating procedure, spotted the car and started firing which resulted in the death of Intizar.

He further argued that Tariq Mehmood arrested constables Fawad Khan, Ghulam Abbas and head constable Shahid at the spot and prepared memo of arrest and recovery. However, Daniyal and Bilal both escaped.

The defence counsel alleged that the victim was a psychological patient and used drugs, adding that FIRs were registered against him.

The special public prosecutor Ghulam Murtaza Matlo and the complainant’s counsel Salahuddin Panhwar opposed the bail pleas, arguing that there was no mala fide intention on the part of the prosecution or complainant.

They contended that according to the defence counsel police officials had received information about the culprits involved in snatching of the vehicles with the government number plates and also searching for another snatched government vehicle, but the number of the car of the deceased was different.

Secondly, they argued that the accused fired shots at the son of the complainant and committed murder on the spot, while all police officials later escaped from the scene instead of shifting the injured to hospital for first aid, which showed their involvement in the planned murder.

All undertrial policemen were on May 15 indicted for murdering the student, who was studying in Malaysia, and was visiting his family in DHA, Karachi.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2018