KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Monday dismissed an application pleading to examine the members of the Supreme Court-appointed joint investigation teams (JITs), who had detained and grilled the accused allegedly involved in the murder of renowned social activist Perween Rahman.

Ms Rahman, head of the Orangi Pilot Project, was gunned down near her office in Orangi Town on March 13, 2013. Five detained accused — Abdul Raheem Swati, his son Mohammad Imran Swati along with three co-accused Ayaz Shamzai alias Swati, Amjad Hussain Khan and Ahmed Khan alias Ahmed Ali alias Pappu Kashmiri — have been charged with her murder.

On Monday, when the ATC-XIII judge took up the case, the assistant prosecutor general and the counsel for the complainant jointly moved an application under Section 540 (power to summon material witness or examine persons present) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

APG Ghulam Murtaza Maitlo and complainant’s counsel Salahuddin Panhwar contended that at the very initial stage the police high-ups had disclosed in the press conference that the real culprits had been killed in a police encounter upon which the sister of the slain activist had petitioned the Supreme Court to constitute a commission to probe the matter.

They argued that the apex court constituted the commission and JIT to probe the matter, therefore the members of the JIT were material witnesses in the present case and also cited the judgments passed by the superior courts in this regard.

The prosecutor and the defence counsel said that the accused would not be prejudiced if their application was allowed.

On the other hand, Advocates Shah Imroze Khan, Amir Mansoob Qureshi, Abid Zaman and Ajab Khan Khattak, who represented the accused, opposed the plea arguing that the investigating officer of the case had neither cited that the members of the JIT had been witnesses in the charge sheet nor had recorded their statement under Section 161 of the CrPC during the investigation.

They pointed out that neither the report, under Section 173 of the CrPC, and the JIT’s findings were supplied to the accused before the commencement of the trial, adding that nor the same were admissible evidence as had been held by the superior courts.

The defence counsel added that the matter pertained to the year 2013 and had not yet been finalised due to the act of the counsel for the complainant.

The accused are behind bars since the date of their arrest and now the matter is near its end as all the material prosecution witnesses have been examined in the case, but instead of closing the side of the prosecution the APG had filed the present application only to prolong the matter without any reasonable ground.

The judge, dismissing the application, questioned that if the evidence of members of the JIT was so necessary, as stated by the APG for the state, then why the prosecution failed to associate them as witnesses in the calendar of the witnesses in the case.

He observed that the charge sheet and the investigation report under Section 173 of the CrPC were submitted by the police after thorough scrutiny by the prosecutor, who was responsible for seeing whether it was complete or incomplete, other necessary papers were attached, and after fulfilling all the legal formalities required by the court.

“The law does not permit the court to fill up the lacunas in the prosecution case,” the judge wrote in his order.

He further wrote that the present case pertained to 2013 and could not be finalised due to the above act of the counsel for the parties, adding that now there were directives of the Sindh High Court to finalise the matter within two months and the stipulated time was about to end.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2019