KARACHI, Dec 17: The additional district and sessions judge, Central, Tasneem Sultana, on Monday adjourned till Jan 11 the hearing of a newly-wed couple’s murder case owing to the non-production of the accused from the Central Prison.

The court directed the superintendent of the Central Prison Karachi to produce accused Shaikh Abdul Majeed on the next date of hearing.

Hafiz Shaikh Mohammad Azeem and his bride Beenish were found dead under mysterious circumstances on the next morning of their wedding night in their North Nazimabad apartment in the Taimuria police limits on Aug 11.

On Dec 4, the court rejected the pre-arrest bail application of Shaikh Abdul Majeed, the father of deceased groom Hafiz Mohammad Azeem Shaikh, and sent him into judicial custody.

On Oct 27 the investigation officer (IO), Khalid Khan of the New Karachi police station, submitted an interim charge-sheet to the judicial magistrate-12 (Central), Abdul Zahoor Chandio, in which he nominated Shaikh Abdul Majeed as the main accused in the case.

Referring to Abdul Majeed’s interview on a TV channel, the IO said Shaikh Majeed had admitted his presence up to 5am in the couple’s room, adding that Beenish was murdered within two to three minutes between 4am and 5am by breaking her jaws and covering her nose and mouth with a pillow.

On Nov 24, the court of judicial magistrate-12 (Central) directed the SSP investigation (Central) to reinvestigate the case and submit a final charge-sheet on Nov 30. Earlier, the court had also issued notices to the IO to submit a final charge-sheet of the case. However, the final charge-sheet was not submitted to the court.

On Dec 1, the court considered the interim charge-sheet, submitted by the investigation officer on Oct 27, as the final one and sent the case to the court of district and sessions judge, Central.

The FIR (391/07) was registered at the Taimuria police station under Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Earlier, the former IO in the case, Mohammad Ashraf of the Taimuria police station, produced three progress reports to the court on different dates, but following a court order, police high-ups assigned the case to senior IO Khalid Khan of the New Karachi police station.

On Spet 20, Abdul Majeed through his counsel submitted an application to District and Sessions judge (Central) Abdul Maalik under Section 22-A(6) (iii) (iv) of the CrPC. The applicant had requested for the transfer of the case’s investigation to another zone, citing his lack of confident in the investigation process.

Following his nomination in the case, Abdul Majeed had rejected the police version and expressed his dissatisfaction over the investigation process and said he had already requested the court for shifting the investigation from the west to any other zone.

The court would indict the accused on the next date of hearing.