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KARACHI, Aug 15: Owing to police negligence, the case file of an under-trial prisoner, Ghulam Mustafa Ismail, has been missing for more than 17 years and despite repeated reminders by the court it has not been produced.
The accused has been in the District Jail of Malir since 1992. He comes to the City Courts only to hear of the next date of his trial. Because of the absence of the investigation officer and the police file the case is yet to proceed.
He is charged with involvement in the preparation of forged documents and a case (FIR 119/92) against him was registered by CIA police at the Clifton police station in 1992 under Sections 420,468,170,471,472,473, and 474 of the PPC.
His is being tried in the court of the additional district and sessions judge-III, South, Sultan Mohammad Awan. The case was lodged by a former deputy secretary to the chief minister of Sindh, Ata Mohammad Memon, alleging that he had used forged documents and signatures of the then chief minister.
According to court staff, upon the directives of judges in different tenures the staff had written letters to a number of officials, including the investigation branches, senior superintendents of police, CIA officials, deputy inspectors-general of police, officials of the Federal Investigation Agency and even the inspector-general of police, but no clue to the file could be found.
Being `tortured to death’
Mr Mustafa, who claims to be a PhD in Arabic, having worked as a ad-hoc judge of the Lahore High Court for three years during the Zia-ul-Haq era, said that the investigation officer of the case, Malik Rab Nawaz, had retired and no other police official was pursuing the case. He said he was neither being convicted nor released and was simply being tortured to death in the jail.
He also named to other persons, Chuttan and Mukhtiar, who were also accused in the case. “Chuttan was honourably acquitted by the additional district and sessions judge-III, South, Syed Inaam-ur-Rehman, on Nov 29, 1997,while Mukhtiar was shown by police as dead, but I am alive,” he said.
He said his father, Akhund Mohammad Ismail Qazi, had served as a vice-chancellor of the Islamia University of Bhawalpur. He was inducted in the foreign affairs ministry during the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government and later performed duties as ambassador to Kabul, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arab.
About the registration of cases against him in Hyderabad, Multan and Rawalpindi, he said his political opponents wanted to keep him behind bars and grab his landed properties, adding that he was implicated in the cases in different provinces and the courts had already acquitted him in many cases there. The cases, he sad, had actually been lodged by a group of influential people who wanted to ruin his life.
No clue to son
He said during his imprisonment his wife, Capt Dr Mubarika, had been martyred on the Siachin Glacier during official duty and his son, Mubarak, who was just one-and-a-half-year old in 1992, went missing.
“I made hectic efforts by writing letters to army officials, family friends and relatives, but no clue about my son has been found,” he said with tears rolling down his cheeks.
“The army officials from the GHQ only confirmed the martyrdom of my wife, but did not let me know about my son. On my request many people visited the residence of my in-laws in Jehlum, but they found the doors locked,” he said.
He said an additional district and sessions judge had granted him bail in the case against a surety of Rs50,000, but the amount could not be arranged as his brother, former judge Qazi Abdur Rehman, was shot dead by gunmen in the Super Market while he carried the surety bonds in his briefcase.
The accused appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to take suo motu notice of his case and order quashment of the “false cases”.
A deputy district attorney, when approached, told Dawn that it was a very old case and quite lengthy, which could be decided within hours if the file was available. Being a government servant, he avoided to comment further.
Defence counsel Dilip Kumar Ladhani told Dawn that the prosecution had so far produced 11 witnesses in the case and was claiming that there were 21 more, but there was no proof on record. He said the statements of prosecution witnesses were recorded in 1993 and after that the case remained pending.
In reply to a question, the lawyer said in case of his pleading guilty he would have been sentenced to 14 years, while as an under-trial prisoner he had spent about 17 years thanks to the police.
He said a fresh bail application had been submitted to the court under Section 265-k of the Criminal Procedure Code and the court had fixed Aug 20 for arguments on it.
The police file having gone missing, he said, was not a fault of the accused and he needed to be acquitted. “If the file is not produced, he will languish in jail forever,” remarked the lawyer.
