KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Monday allowed a prosecution’s request seeking time for the fourth consecutive for submission of the final charge sheet against two Pakistan Peoples Party lawmakers and others allegedly involved in the Nazim Jokhio murder case.

MPA Jam Awais, his elder brother MNA Jam Abdul Karim, their two foreign guests, servants and guards have been booked for abducting and torturing Jokhio to death at the lawmaker’s farmhouse in Malir on Nov 3, 2021.

Victim’s brother Afzal Jokhio had nominated lawmakers Awais, Karim and others for murdering 27-year-old Nazim Jokhio, who earned the ire of influential persons for stopping their foreign guests from hunting houbara bustard.

On Monday, when the matter came up before Judicial Magistrate (Malir) Altaf Hussain, the investigating officer (IO) of the case was set to furnish the final charge sheet against the suspects under Section 173 of the criminal procedure code.

On Jan 13, the court had allowed four-day time for submission of the final charge sheet.

During the proceedings, IO Siraj Lashari appeared and once again requested the magistrate to grant him more time so that he could submit the final charge sheet.

He submitted that the charge sheet was already lying with the prosecution department for scrutiny by the deputy district public prosecutor Ahad Malik.

He added that the prosecutor had failed to complete the scrutiny as yet and requested more time to complete the process.

Allowing the request, the magistrate granted time till Jan 25 for submitting the final charge sheet.

The magistrate has been extending time for submission of the final report since Jan 13.

Recently, a district and sessions court on Jan 13 recalled interim pre-arrest bail granted to five suspects and observed that their acts fell within the ambit of Section 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 and the incumbent court had no jurisdiction to try and decide their bail pleas.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2022