KARACHI: An eyewitness on Tuesday identified three suspects as the alleged murderers of Zain Hasan Ali Effendi inside his Cosmopolitan Society house.

Initially, police booked five unidentified men over killing of 50-year-old Effendi, a great-grandson of founder of the Sindh Madressatul Islam Hassan Ali Effendi and maternal cousin of former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari.

Later, three suspects — Rehmatullah, Imran and Mohammad Gul — were taken into custody over their alleged involvement in the murder.

On Tuesday, the investigating officer of the case moved an application before the judicial magistrate concerned asking the court to conduct an identification parade of the three detained suspects.

FIR says victim was killed while resisting a house robbery

He produced an eyewitness of the case and the suspects before the magistrate.

The judicial magistrate after completing legal formalities conducted the identification parade for the suspects.

The eyewitness rightly picked out the three men as the accused, who had allegedly entered the house of the victim and opened fire on him for putting up resistance during an armed robbery.

The magistrate recorded the statement of the eyewitness and remanded the detained suspects in police custody for three days with the direction to the IO to produce them on the next date along with an investigation report.

According to contents of the FIR lodged by the victim’s wife, Anita Zain, she was asleep in their room on the upper portion of the bungalow when they heard that door of their bedroom was knocked on with force at around 4.20am and suddenly four armed men entered by breaking the door lock.

Soon after entering the room, they demanded gold ornaments from her.

The complainant said she immediately gave them her chain and a ring. In the meantime, one suspect while talking to her husband pushed him and took him to other room while other suspects took two mobile phones and two purses lying on the table, which contained some necessary papers and cash.

The complainant said in the meantime, her husband put up resistance and the suspect who had taken him to other room opened fire on him, which missed.

The suspect fired again, which hit her husband on the mouth.

Later, the suspects fired three to four more shots and left the room.

She rushed to her husband who had already died. She phoned the family driver who wasn’t responded to her call.

The complainant said she phoned her mother-in-law and when she came out from the room, the suspects had fled.

As per FIR, the suspects had tied hands and legs of the guard, watchman and driver and one of the armed suspects stood there watching over them.

The robbers also broke the lock of the children’s room, threatened them and asked them about the room of their father, said the complainant.

The FIR said five masked and armed men entered the home, snatched gold ornaments, mobile phones and purses and shot dead Zain Effendi over resistance.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2021