KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) has acquitted two policemen, including an inspector of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), in a case pertaining to the kidnapping of a Hindu businessman for ransom, due to ‘faulty investigation’.

CTD Inspector Javed Hussain Shaikh and police constable Arshad Iqbal, along with a private man, Javed Ali, were charged with kidnapping Sagar Kumar and demanding Rs5 million ransom.

The ATC-XVI judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced his verdict recently. It was earlier reserved after evidence and final arguments from both sides were recorded.

The judge pointed out serious shortcomings in the course of investigation, and noted that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against the accused.

The judge noted that the abducted man and the complainants failed to identify the accused as the kidnappers in their testimonies during the trial.

According to the prosecution, Mr Kumar was traveling to Karachi from Hyderabad when he was abducted near the Northern Bypass on the night of Nov 20, 2022.

It further mentioned that the captive had phoned his brother, Akash, and informed him that he had been kidnapped by CTD officials who had demanded Rs5 million ransom for his release. They had also threatened to implicate the captive in fake cases if he failed to pay the ransom, it added.

The judge wrote in his order that the investigating officer (IO) had applied tactics to pressure prosecution witnesses including registration of FIRs against them.

He highlighted faults in the collection of material evidence and said that the IO failed to collect call data records of both the accused and the complainant and to associate private witnesses from the place of the arrest, and collect CCTV footage, as well as to properly seal the ransom amount etc which led him to the conclusion that the prosecution had failed to establish its charges against the accused persons.

The judge also wrote that the IO had failed to produce Rangers officials who had taken part in the operation to recover the captive as witnesses for recording their statements during the trial.

He said that as per the prosecution, it was the Rangers who were on board with the complainant, Akash, and the CTD police who raided and recovered the abductee but they were not produced during the trial nor was any independent witness produced despite the place of incident being a thickly populated and busy area.

He added that the IO failed to collect footage of the CCTV camera installed there; under the circumstances the best evidence available with the prosecution was not produced giving adverse inference for the prosecution case.

During the trial, the captive’s brother, Akash, testified that the present accused were not the ones who had abducted his brother and he handed the ransom amount to the police. Moreover, he said that none of the accused were arrested in his presence.

This led the state prosecutor to declare the witness as hostile.

The abductee, Sagar Kumar, also failed to identify the accused before the court. He testified that the present accused persons were not those who had abducted him.

The case was registered under the Sections 365-A (kidnapping or abducting for extorting property, valuable security, etc.) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with the Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2023