KARACHI: Police have booked Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Jam Abdul Karim Bijar in the high-profile Nazimudin Jokhio after the victim’s family named him in their statement.

So far, a total of 21 suspects, including five unknown persons, have been nominated in the murder case and only six of them, including PPP MPA Jam Awais Bijar, were arrested.

Young Jokhio was found tortured to death at a Malir farmhouse of PPP MPA Jam Awais after he angered the influential persons for trying to prevent their foreign guests from hunting vulnerable houbara bustard in district Thatta.

MNA Jam Karim is the elder brother of held MPA Jam Awais who is currently on police remand since Nov 5.

An eight-member police team, headed by SSP-Malir Irfan Bahadur, is investigating the case, grilling the held suspects and recording the statements of all concerned parties.

SSP Bahadur confirmed that the legislator was nominated in the FIR in the light of the statement of the victim’s family.

He said that initially the FIR was lodged against five suspects including MPA Jam Awais. Three of them had already been arrested while efforts were underway to arrest the two nominated suspects.

He said three more suspects had been detained for their alleged involvement in threatening Nazim Jokhio when he had made a video of a foreign hunter that had gone viral on social media.

Remand

A judicial magistrate on Wednesday remanded three official of the Sindh Wildlife Department in police custody till Nov 16 in the Jokhio murder case.

The investigating officer produced the suspects Abdul Razzaq, Jamal and Meraj before the court of a judicial magistrate (Malir) and sought their custody for questioning.

The magistrate handed them over to police on six-day physical remand with direction to produce them again along with a progress report on the next hearing.

Earlier on Monday, the lawyer for complainant Afzal Jokhio, told a court that the case was not being properly investigated as the police had not inspected the place of incident and the mobile phone of the deceased was also not recovered.

He had submitted that Section 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and relevant sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 and may be incorporated in the case as it was an act of terrorism.

Kidnap charge added in FIR

SSP Bahadur said that the police also included the kidnapping charge under Section 365 of the PPC as the family alleged that Jokhio was kidnapped from his home in the village near Ghaghar Phatak and taken to the Jam House in Malir, where he was allegedly tortured to death.

The head of the investigation team said that the police had conducted raids on the houses of the suspects and recovered the digital video recorder (DVR) of the Jam House.

He said that the DVR was sent to a lab in Lahore for a forensic analysis.

Besides, the cell phone of the victim’s lawyer had also been sent to Lahore as the family claimed that Jokhio had sent an audio message to his lawyer before being killed.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2021