LAHORE: Naseerabad police on Friday submitted challan before a sessions court in the murder case of former assistant advocate general Shahbaz Tatla.

It said SSP Mufakhar Adeel, the prime suspect, had confessed during the investigation that he killed his friend, Tatla.

The document said the senior police officer admitted that he had disposed of Tatla’s body in a plastic drum filled with acid. The suspect later got the crime scene (a rented house) washed in order to remove any evidence of his crime. The police had taken samples from the crime scene and sent them to laboratory for forensic examination.

SSP Adeel and Tatla had gone missing on Feb 7, 2020. The police arrested Asad Bhatti, a common friend of both the suspect and the victim, who allegedly narrated the whole story of the crime during interrogation. The police remained ‘clueless’ about the whereabouts of Adeel.

However, he ended his mysterious disappearance after one month and surrendered to the police. He is now in jail on judicial remand.

The police also arrested owner of the shop from where the acid, used in the crime, was purchased.

Advocate Aftab Ahmad Bajwa, the counsel for SSP Adeel, rejected the claim of the police and maintained that his client had not made any confession. He said the police had miserably failed to collect any evidence to establish that Tatla was dead.

He further said the statement of a suspect during the police custody had no value before the law. He said ‘the courts render sentences on the basis of evidence only’.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2020