Police charge-sheeted 23 suspects, including two PPP lawmakers and as many foreigners, in the Nazim Jokhio murder case after the investigation officer (IO) submitted an interim challan to Judicial Magistrate (Malir) Altaf Hussain on Tuesday.

The charge sheet, however, did not specify the role of each of the suspects in the killing of 27-year-old Nazim, who was allegedly tortured to death while in detention at PPP MPA Jam Awais' farmhouse on the outskirts of Karachi’s Malir.

His body was recovered from the farmhouse last month, following which Nazim's relatives had accused Awais, his brother, PPP MNA Jam Abdul Karim, and his henchmen of torturing him to death for resisting houbara bustard hunting by the lawmakers' Arab guests and filming them while hunting in the victim's village, Achar Salaar village in Thatta.

In the interim charge sheet submitted to the judicial magistrate today, the IO named six detained suspects — PPP MPA Awais and five of his employees, Mehar Ali, Haider Ali, Muhammad Meraj, Jamal Wahid and Abdul Razzaq.

He also charge-sheeted 12 on-the-run suspects, namely PPP MNA Abdul Karim, two foreigner guests of the lawmaker, four of his employees — Niaz Salar, Ahmed Shoro, Atta Muhammad and Zahim — and five of his guards, whose names are not mentioned in the report.

Besides them, five suspects on interim bail — Muhammad Khan Jokhio, Muhammad Ishaq Jokhio, Muhammad Saleem Salar, Dodo Khan and Soomar Salar — have also been charge-sheeted.

The interim charge sheet contained the statements of PPP lawmakers Awais and Abdul Karim, Nazim's relatives and witnesses, recorded under section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The IO submitted to the judicial magistrate that he had inspected the spot where Nazim allegedly quarrelled with the foreigner guests of the PPP lawmakers and shot their video, which he had uploaded on Facebook and which had gone viral on social media after his murder.

Moreover, the IO stated, he had also inspected Awais' farmhouse and found a club and a wooden board stained with the "victim's blood".

He said the suspects had burnt Nazim's clothes and mobile phone and thrown both of his belongings in a well after the murder.

But these items were recovered and, along with digital video recorder (DVR) footage from cameras at Awais' farmhouse, sent to a laboratory for forensic analysis, he added.

The IO said the final report of the body's postmortem, an histopathology report — which pertains to the diagnosis and study of diseases of tissues — and forensic analysis reports of the DVR footage, Nazim's phone and a universal serial bus (USB) sent to the Federal Investigation Agency were still awaited.

Therefore, he requested the judicial magistrate to accept the interim charge sheet and give him 10 more days to submit the final report.

Accepting his request, the judicial magistrate directed the IO to submit the final charge sheet within 10 days.