KARACHI: An antiterrorism court is set to hear final argument on Thursday (today) in the Naqeeb murder case.

When the matter came up before the ATC-XVI judge, who is conducting the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, former SSP Rao Anwar and other police officials appeared in court.

On the last date, Rao Anwar had recorded his statement, alleging that he had been framed in the case due to a ‘departmental rivalry’, but had failed to name any officer in the police department.

The then Malir SSP and his around two-dozen subordinates have been charged with killing Naseebullah Mehsud, better known as Naqeeb Ullah, and three others in a staged encounter in January 2018 after dubbing them “Taliban militants”.

Naqeeb’s killing stormed social media with public condemnations and sparked countrywide protests by civil society against the state’s failure to arrest the former SSP and his team.

The then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar took suo motu and twice offered Mr Anwar to surrender. The former SPP, after eluding the law enforcers for some three months, was finally arrested after he surrendered before the Supreme Court in March 2018.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2022