KARACHI: An antiterrorism court was informed that an aspiring model from Waziristan, Naqeebullah Mehsud, died from ‘chest injury’ caused by two bullets that pierced through his upper torso during a ‘fake’ police encounter.

This was disclosed in the court by a prosecution witness, Dr Abdul Ghaffar, the-then medico-legal officer at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where he had conducted a postmortem of the victim.

Former SSP Rao Anwar, along with his around two dozen subordinates, has been charged with killing Naqeeb and three others after dubbing them “Taliban militants” in a ‘fake shoot-out’ on Jan 13, 2018.

When the matter came up before the ATC-III judge, who is conducting trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, former SSP Anwar and some other accused persons were present in the court on bail while others had been brought from the prison.

Judge takes notice of ‘harassment’ of prosecution witnesses by seven police officials

The state prosecutor produced the witness, Dr Ghaffar, to record his statement in the case. He filed a statement coupled with postmortem examination reports of four victims, including Naqeebullah Mehsud.

In the post-mortem report of Naqeeb, the medico-legal officer said that his cause of death was bullet “injury in his chest”, as two bullets entered his upper torso from the front side and went out from his back at the same point, creating a two-centimetre hole. He died from the injury in the chest, the witness deposed.

The witness further said the cause of death of three other victims, who were also shot dead during the encounter, was cardiac arrest.

The prosecution produced two other witnesses — Sub-inspector Mumtaz and Sub-inspector Saleem — for their cross-examination by the defence counsel for the accused. A private witness, Abdul Rahim, was produced for recording his testimony.

However, the testimony of the private witness and cross-examination of MLO Dr Shaikh and two police officials could not be done due to absence of Advocate Amir Mansoob Qureshi, the defence counsel for former SSP Anwar.

The judge fixed the matter on Oct 7 to record testimonies and cross-examination of the witnesses.

Witnesses’ harassment

The judge also took notice of alleged harassment of the prosecution’s witnesses by seven police officials, who have been allegedly absconding in the present case.

The judge directed the DIG East to personally appear to explain why the absconding suspects had not been tracked down yet and how they were allegedly harassing the witnesses purportedly to stop them from testifying before the court against the accused persons.

Earlier, Advocate Salahuddin Panhwar for the complainant complained that seven police officials nominated in the case were still absconding and they were harassing the witnesses of the prosecution to restrain them from recording their statements against the accused persons in the court.

The absconding police officials — Amanullah Marwat, Shaikh Muhammad Shoaib, Gada Hussain, Mohsin Abbas, Sadaqat Hussain Shah, Rana Shamim and Riaz — have already been declared proclaimed offenders and warrants have been issued for their arrest.

In February, the court had allowed Alam Sher, brother of Naqeeb, to become complainant in the case after his father Mohammad Khan, who was the initial complainant in the murder case, passed away due to cancer in December 2019.

According to the prosecution, the under-trial police officials kidnapped Naqeeb and three others for ransom and killed them in a ‘fake encounter’ and later dubbed them ‘Taliban militants’.

The killing of the young Naqeeb had sparked widespread protests by civil society members and the-then chief justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar took suo motu notice of the killings.

Later, the trial court declared Naqeeb and three other victims innocent, and quashed the cases filed against them.

In March 2019, an ATC had indicted Anwar and others for killing the four victims in a ‘fake encounter’ and terming them militants and foisting fake recoveries of weapons and explosives on the victims.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2020