MULTAN, June 1: Announcing a landmark decision, a court in the Kot Addu tehsil of Muzaffargarh on Monday handed down death sentence to a police inspector on two counts for killing two persons in a fake encounter at Mahmood kot area in March last year.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Zulfiqar Ali Nasir also awarded life imprisonment to Inspector Azmatullah Gurmani's accomplices - constables Sarwar Gujjar and Saleem Baapa. Each of the convicts will have to pay Rs200,000 fine.

The convicts, however, managed to flee from the courtroom with the alleged connivance of the police officials deputed there to arrest them. The court has directed the Punjab police chief to ensure arrest of the absconders and issued warrants for the arrest of their guarantors.

Working as Mahmoodkot police SHO, Azmatullah had reportedly visited Shahid Chandia and his companion Muhammad Akram at Mauza Zor early in the morning when they were asleep. Later, both were gunned down in cold blood after which Shahid's family alleged that it happened so because the deceased were pursuing a case in the Lahore High Court against the inspector.

In August 2002, Azmatullah was serving as the Muzaffargarh city police SHO. He picked up Shahid's father, Kursheed Ahmad Chandia, a retired high school teacher, to interrogate him in a robbery case registered against some unnamed persons.

Shahid had filed a habeas corpus petition with the LHC's Multan bench for the recovery of his elderly father. When the police offered justification of Master Khursheed's detention under section 54 CrPC, the court admonished the SHO for violating law and directed him to immediately release the detenue.

Later when Azmatullah was reposted the Mahmoodkot police SHO, he had hurled threats to Master Khursheed and family that he would avenge the humiliation he had to face in the habeas corpus petition filed by Shahid.

Within hours after of the encounter, the then Muzaffargarh DPO, Tariq Masood Yasin, had awarded Rs20,000 cash prize to the inspector and his team for their "act of professionalism and bravery."

Labelling the victims as the 'Master Khursheed Gang,' the police claimed that the teacher and another of his sons, Junaid, had also taken part in the shootout but they managed to escape while firing at the law-enforcers.

Junaid was killed in another encounter by Layyah Saddar police on Aug 13 last year and his brothers, Moazzam and Obaidullah, were arrested. The Layyah police claimed that Junaid and his accomplices were fleeing away after robbing a tractor driver and an encounter followed.

Ironically, the then Layyah Saddar police SHO, Malik Khalil, and Azmatullah were said to be close friends, though they belonged to different places. Moazzam, an employee of the Pak-Arab Oil Refinery, and Obaidullah are still languishing in the Dera Ghazi Khan central jail.

Information gleaned by this correspondent revealed that the rivalry between Azmatullah and Master Khursheed's family dated back to 1998. An area landlord once forcibly took away Master Kursheed's car (FDC-9433), procured under the Yellow Cab Scheme, and tractor (MHA-2454) for his personal use.

Master Khursheed sought help of police and the vehicles were recovered from the custody of the landlord belonging to the Khar clan. Azmatullah was then the Mahmoodkot police SHO and a close aide of the landlord.

He pressured the complainant to withdraw the case if he wanted to get his vehicles back. However, the master brought the matter into the knowledge of Muzaffargarh SSP Saeed Ahmad Khan, who directed the SHO to hand over the vehicles to their owner without any delay.

This annoyed the SHO, who later bore grudge against the family. In the meanwhile, Master Khursheed's elder son, Azam, got purchased a pick-up on instalments from Nazeer Khitran of Barkhan, Balochistan.

Later, differences cropped up between Azam and Khitran over the payment and the latter approached Azmatullah through an area landlord belonging to the Arain clan, who was among the central characters of the infamous Parco land scam.

Azmatullah wasted no time in arresting Junaid and produced him before the then district magistrate to repatriate him to Barkhan where Khitran had managed to file a case against Azam and Junaid for driving away with vehicle.

The DM, however, refused to hand over Junaid to Khitran until he had some officials of Balochistan with him. (However, the Arain landlord allegedly forced the master's family to strike a deal with Kithran and mortgaged documents of a piece of land owned by the family in his favour as guarantee to get the deal enforced).

This episode further frustrated Azmatullah, who later did not lose any chance of making life difficult for the family. He enjoyed full backing of the Khar and Arain landlords and registered fake cases against Master Khursheed and his sons wherever he was posted an SHO.

At times, he allegedly also got favours from his colleagues posted at other police stations to make life miserable for the master's family. A judicial inquiry into the killings of Shahid and Akram was also carried out by a magistrate while the provincial police authorities had got conducted an inquiry from SSP (investigation) Dr Arif Mushtaq.

Both the inquiries had endorsed the police's version of the encounter. SSP Mushtaq had reportedly also appeared as a defence witness for Inspector Azmatullah and his accomplices in the case in which the court declared the encounter as fake.

The decision consoled the bereaved families and raised questions that whether the police authorities will take any disciplinary action against the then Muzaffargarh DPO, Tariq Masood, who wasted no time in patting the police party for the encounter.