LAHORE: SSP Mufakhar Adeel has filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court challenging his conviction in the murder case of his friend Shahbaz Tatla, also a former assistant advocate general.

Last week, a sessions court handed down life sentence to Adeel and acquitted two other accused giving them the benefit of the doubt.

The trial court awarded life imprisonment under section 302 (b) (murder) and five-year jail term each under section 365 (abduction) and section 201 (hiding evidence of a crime) of the PPC.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs450,000 on the convict.

The court acquitted co-accused Asad Bhatti and Irfan Ali of the charges.

SSP Adeel’s counsel pleaded in the appeal that police failed to collect any evidence to establish that the former law officer was dead. He said the statement of a suspect during police custody had no value in the eye of law as courts rendered sentences on the basis of evidence only.

Advocate Tatla had gone missing on Feb 7, 2020. Police initially arrested Bhatti, a common friend of the prime accused and the deceased, who narrated the whole story of the crime during the interrogation. The third accused, Ali, was the owner of the shop from where the acid, used in the crime, was purchased.

The accused police officer ended his mysterious disappearance after one month of the incident and surrendered to police. He denied the allegations saying police failed to collect any evidence to establish that the former law officer was dead.

The Naseerabad police had submitted challan before the court saying the accused persons confessed to their crime. It said the prime suspect, Adeel, admitted that he disposed of the body of his lawyer friend in a plastic drum filled with acid. He later got the crime scene (a rented house) washed in order to remove any evidence of his offense with the help of his accomplices.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2022