KARACHI: An antiterrorism court has exonerated four accused, said to be associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, in cases pertaining to alleged kidnapping and targeted killing due to lack of evidence.

The accused — Asif Ali, alias Mistri; Salahuddin; Muhammad Younus, alias Lamba and Muhammad Kamran, alias Mechanic — along with their five alleged absconding accomplices were charged with kidnapping and killing the victims and throwing their bodies in the gunny bags in 2011 when the violence reached its peak in the city.

The kidnappings and murders took place within the remit of the Peerabad and the Pakistan Bazar police stations.

The ATC-III judge noted that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against the detained men beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt in an alleged kidnapping and murder of the victim in the Peerabad locality.

The court also acquitted all the four accused in a separate case by extending them the benefit of the doubt due to lack of evidence.

It directed the prison superintendent to release them forthwith if their custody was not required in any other case.

The court kept the cases against the absconding suspects — Saleem Shaikh; Raja; Rashid Jameel; Muhammad Imran, alias Daddo and Muhammad Hayat, alias Kashif — on dormant file till their arrest or surrender.

According to the prosecution, unidentified motorcyclists kidnapped Hasan Khan in the early hours of Sept 3, 2011 within the remit of the Pakistan Bazaar police station.

It further mentioned that two eyewitnesses Zahoor Muhammad and Ahmed Shah had allegedly seen the accused persons riding on motorcycles, who drove away the victim.

Later, the victim’s body was found in a gunny bag from a garbage den near the Khawaja Ghareeb Nawaz dispensary in UC-8 of Orangi Town. The head, arms and legs of the victim were amputated and missing, it added.

In the second case, the judge acquitted the same set of the accused persons, except Muhammad Younus, by extending them the benefit of the doubt due to insufficient evidence.

According to the prosecution, the principal accused along with Kamran Khan, Salahuddin, Asif and their absconding accomplices allegedly kidnapped Azad Hussain in Peerabad locality on Aug 31, 2011.

They allegedly murdered him and buried his body on the Kali Pahari. The prosecution maintained that police had later recovered the body of the victim on their pointation by the accused persons.

In their statements, recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, all the accused persons denied the allegations and claimed their innocence contending that the police framed them in the present cases.

Their defence counsel Lateefuddin Pasha and others contended that there was no evidence to connect the role of their clients with the commissioning of the alleged offence as the prosecution solely relied upon the extrajudicial confession recorded by the accused before the police in both the cases.

They further contended that the investigating officers failed to get confessional statements of the accused persons recorded before the judicial magistrate as under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, thus the confessions before police were not admissible evidence to lead to conviction.

However, state prosecutor Najma argued that the prosecution brought on record sufficient evidence to connect the role of the accused persons with the commissioning of the alleged offences and pleaded to punish them strictly in accordance with the law.

Two separate cases were registered.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2019