KARACHI: A sessions court directed on Thursday the station house officer of the Gizri police station to file a report regarding killing of a citizen in an alleged fake encounter in Defence Housing Authority.

The additional district and sessions judge (South) allowed time, till Dec 16, to the Gizri SHO, who appeared before the court and had requested for time to enable him to file the report.

Recently, a judicial magistrate had also ordered a fresh post-mortem examination of the victim in the presence of a judicial magistrate on request of Mohammad Saqib, the brother of the victim.

Police claimed to have killed five ‘suspects’ claiming that they had entered a bungalow near Yasrab Imambargah in DHA Phase 4 with intention of burglary on Nov 27.

However, a local leader of PTI, Laila Parveen, filed an application seeking registration of an FIR against the policemen allegedly involved in killing of her driver Abbas in the ‘fake’ encounter.

She said Gizri police took away Abbas and later killed him along with five men and declared them ‘robbers’.

Corruption case

An accountability court was informed on Thursday that former provincial minister Adil Siddiqui, who was reportedly absconding in an alleged Rs20 million corruption case, had recently died from coronavirus.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed a reference against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan leader and former provincial minister Adil Siddiqui and others in a case pertaining to alleged illegal allotment and conversion of industrial plots into commercial ones in different cities.

The defence counsel informed the judge that the former minister had recently died of coronavirus.

The judge asked the IO to verify the claim and submit a report till Jan 8.

Shahid Hamid murder case

An antiterrorism court has fixed Dec 16 for arguments on an application seeking to summon the widow of former managing director of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) Shahid Hamid for recording her statement in a 23-year-old triple murder case.

Mohammad Minhaj Qazi and Mehboob Ghufran, with their alleged accomplices have been charged with killing the then KESC MD, his driver and a guard in DHA on July 5, 1997.

The accused were produced from prison before the ATC-III judge.

Special public prosecutor for Rangers Rana Khalid was present while defence counsel Mushtaq Ahmed and Abdul Mateen and the IO of the case were absent.

The judge issued notices to the IO and the defence counsel for Dec 16 and fixed the matter for arguments on the application on the next date.

The accused had moved an application for re-examining the complainant, Shahnaz Hamid, widow of the slain KESC MD, in the present case.

Meanwhile, the judge of the ATC-XV has granted pre-arrest bail to an absconding suspect Mohammad Arif in a case pertaining to killing of a police officer in 2014.

The judge directed the applicant to furnish a surety of Rs25,000.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2020