KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the defence secretary to extend assistance to police in getting the custody of chief of the outlawed Peoples Amn Committee Uzair Baloch for grilling him in a case pertaining to the alleged murder of four missing persons.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi was hearing a petition seeking whereabouts of a head constable of the jail police and his three friends, who reportedly went missing in 2010 near the Karachi central prison.

In a previous hearing, a senior police officer, who was appointed as the inquiry officer, submitted that all the four missing persons had been killed by Uzair Baloch, who is currently facing trial before military courts.

The SHC grants interim bail to ex-home minister Siyal in a NAB inquiry regarding assets beyond means

He said that Uzair and his accomplices had admitted this during their confessional statement recorded by a judicial magistrate. Police sought time to investigate Uzair in the present case.

When the petition came up for hearing on Thursday, another senior police officer informed the bench that Uzair was in the custody of military authorities and a letter had been sent to the ministry of defence seeking his custody for investigation in the present case.

However, the response of the ministry was still awaited, he added.

When the bench asked the police officer to inform it whether any practical step was taken to seek the custody, he said that he met a military official who also told him that the matter had been brought in the notice of high-ups.

The bench ordered the production of the alleged Lyari gangster before the police for grilling and directed the defence secretary to provide help to police to get his custody.

The petition was filed in 2011 regarding the alleged disappearance of Lala Amin, a head constable of jail police, Ghazi Khan, Sher Afzal and Shiraz Khan within the remit of the New Town police station in 2010.

Phullan Khatoon, mother of Ghazi Khan, had filed the petition and alleged that her son and his friends had been picked up by Rangers on August 1, 2010 and pleaded for their recovery.

Earlier, police submitted that Rangers former inspector Sher Afsar and former sub-inspector Riaz Taman were also being prosecuted before an antiterrorism court for kidnapping the detainees for ransom.

However, a DIG in his report submitted that Uzair in his confessional statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code admitted to have killed the four men, adding that during a joint investigation team’s session Waseem Dada, a cook of Uzair Baloch, disclosed that the four missing persons along with Shahid Bikak came to the residence of Uzair in 2010 and he heard that two of them told Uzair that they would not give the ownership documents of their plot to Bikak.

Uzair asked Bikak to kill them if they would not agree to hand over the documents, the report quoted Uzair’s cook as telling the investigators.

The report further said that the grilling of Uzair, his cook and Bikak was necessary to unearth the truth, adding that the alleged gangster was in the custody of military authorities and Waseem after acquittal in all the cases went underground while Bikak was also at large.

Former minister gets interim bail

Another SHC bench on Friday granted interim bail to former home minister Sohail Anwar Siyal till Aug 6 in a corruption inquiry initiated by National Accountability Bureau.

The former minister, through his lawyer, moved the SHC seeking pre-arrest bail after NAB-Sukkur sought details of his and his family’s assets in connection with an inquiry against them regarding living beyond known sources of income.

The two-judge bench granted interim bail to the applicant against a surety bond of Rs1 million till Aug 6 and issued notice to NAB for next hearing. The court directed the former minister to cooperate with the investigators.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2019