KARACHI: An antiterrorism court has reserved its order for June 24 on a plea of the prosecution for recording testimony of a judicial magistrate, who had recorded purported confession of alleged Lyari gangster Uzair Baloch about running criminal rackets under patronage of politicians and police and murder of his rival Arshad Pappu and his aides.

Uzair Baloch, the chief of the outlawed Peoples Amn Committee, is facing dozens of criminal cases pertaining to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion, encounters with law enforcers pending trial before sessions’ and antiterrorism courts.

The prosecution filed an application before the ATC-X judge, who is conducting trial against Uzair Baloch, Akram Baloch, Yousuf Baloch and Shahjahan Baloch in the Arshad Pappu murder case.

Rangers Special Prosecutor Rana Khalid Hussain asked the court to allow him to list a judicial magistrate as a witness in the present case and record his testimony accordingly.

He added that the then JM, Syed Imran Imam Zaidi, had recorded confession of accused Uzair Baloch in another criminal case in 2016 and pleaded that the prosecution be allowed to cite him a witness in the present case.

However, defence counsel Mushtaq Ahmed and Abid Zaman opposed the prosecution’s plea arguing that the higher courts had rendered judgements in different cases, wherein it had been declared that the evidence recorded against an accused in one case could not be used in another case against the same person.

Therefore, the counsel pleaded to dismiss the prosecution’s plea for lacking merit.

However, the court reserved its order on the plea for June 24.

In his purported confession, Uzair Baloch had disclosed that he along with his accomplices had killed Pappu, his brother Arafat and an aide Jumma Shera in 2013.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2023