MULTAN, July 13: Some high officials in the district police have allegedly gone an extra mile to shield an alleged militant whom his “patrons in uniform” regard as a key informer. Ibraheem alias Madni was reportedly captured along with four others by the Multan police on June 9 last in connection with a foiled bid of kidnapping a doctor for ransom. Two of the alleged culprits were shot dead in, what police claimed, an encounter while the other two were later remanded to the judicial custody.

However, the police did not bring Madni’s arrest on record until his illegal confinement was reported in a section of press and the provincial police authorities sought a report. Madni was also a nominated accused in the murder of Multan’s Dera Muhammadi union council nazim Rana Shamshad.

The nazim was gunned down in June last year and his son Rana Imran had nominated Ibraheem Madni and his brother Ali Shan in the FIR registered with the Mumtazabad police station. The latter’s national identity card was found from the scene of crime.

Sources in the police department revealed that Madni had been associated with a militant outfit, Al-Badar Mujahideen, after being trained in assault and combative guerrilla skills at a camp in Afghanistan. He remained involved in ‘jihad’ on foreign fronts for some time.

He, however, took to criminal activities after returning to his native land when the official patronage of the ‘jihadi’ elements was no more there after the 9/11 incident and the consequent shift in Pakistan’s foreign policy.

Lists of the alleged militants returning to the country from the abandoned foreign missions were reportedly provided to the Special Branch and the Crimes Investigation Department of the police, perhaps, to keep a vigil on their activities.

In his criminal pursuits and hide and seek with the law enforcers, Madni allegedly became acquainted with some of the police officials serving in the SB and the CID with a specific counter-terrorism task. Madni proved a goldmine for his patrons in the police department, sources added.

They said his patrons had not only been following the policy of “hire a thief to catch a thief” but there were reports that they had also their share in the booties. However, his nomination in the murder of Rana Shamshad and arrest in the kidnap case jolted his patrons in uniform, who had got out-of-turn departmental promotions claiming laudable achievements in the counter-terrorism campaign.

Nevertheless his patrons are not giving up and they are making efforts to help him evade charges of homicide. A senior police official, while speaking at a press conference along with Multan District Police Officer Sikander Hayat on June 8, could not restrain himself from showing a soft corner for Madni. The official was quoted to have said that Madni was in Dubai while his brother and co-accused, Ali Shan, was in judicial lock-up in Alipur (Muzaffargarh) on the day when Rana Shamshad was murdered.

It is pertinent to mention here that the official made these remarks when it was just a first day of Madni’s custody on a four-day physical remand in the murder case.

It may be added here that the accused had taken the same plea while applying for the pre-arrest bails in the murder case last year. But, the court had cancelled the interim bails when two separate inquiries conducted by two senior police officials in Muzaffargarh found that in fact Ali Shan was not in the Alipur’s judicial lock-up on the day when Rana Shamshad was murdered and instead another person was kept there under his (Ali Shan’s) particulars in a case lodged by Ghulam Rasool.

In the course of inquiries, the complainant had admitted that it was a ploy orchestrated by Ali Shan and ASI Ayub Chandia of the Alipur Saddar police station to show his absence from the scene of murder. He said he was paid Rs5,000 to become the complainant in the fake case.

In his detailed report submitted to the Muzaffargarh district police officer on Dec 14 last year, inquiry officer DSP Kifayat Husain recommended action against complainant Ghulam Rasool and ASI Ayub. He also endorsed the earlier inquiry conducted by Alipur Saddar police SHO Pervez Akhtar in which the latter had recommended that the ‘fake’ case instituted to establish an alibi for the accused in a murder case be discharged.

Ali Shan was arrested on cancellation of the interim bails while Madni was declared a proclaimed offender. The police had recovered the .30 calibre pistol used in the murder of Rana Shamshad from Ali Shan’s possession and the Forensic Science Laboratory had also furnished a positive report about the use of the weapon in the incident.

Earlier, while dismissing a writ petition filed by the accused for change of police investigation officer in the Rana’s murder case, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court, Multan bench, had remarked: “The petitioner will be at liberty to prove his version of alibi plea before the learned trial court.”

The court also observed: The purpose of (police) investigation under section 4 of the CrPC is to collect evidence and not to declare an accused guilty or innocent as the findings of the police are not binding on the court.”