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KARACHI, Aug 3: An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday reserved its order on two applications of the defence side seeking to summon and examine two prosecution witnesses in the Sarfraz Shah murder case.
The case was fixed for statements of the accused, but when it came up for hearing, the court took up two pending applications of the defence.
After hearing arguments from both sides, judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso of ATC-I, who is conducting the trial, reserved the order on both pleas for pronouncement on Thursday.
One of the defence counsel, Shaukat Hayat, had moved two applications under Section 510 (report of chemical examiner, serologist etc.) of the criminal procedure code on July 27 and requested the court to summon the chemical examiner and ballistic expert and examine them.He argued that the prosecution had not examined those witnesses and their reports were submitted through the investigation officer which created some ambiguity about the authenticity of the reports.
However, special public prosecutor Mohammad Khan Buriro opposed the pleas and argued that the chemical examiner prepared the report after analysing the blood-stained clothes and bricks and the ballistic expert had prepared the FSL report about the weapons used in the crime, and both reports had been placed before the court by the IO.
Therefore, he contended, their statements were not required and the prosecution had left them out to save time.
He argued that the defence counsel had no right to move an application to call the prosecution witnesses. In fact, he added, it was the authority of the court to summon and examine those witnesses if it considered necessary in the interest of justice.
The prosecutor concluded that the defence lawyer had moved the applications to delay the trial, and prayed the court to dismiss them.
The hearing was put off till Thursday when the court would record statements of the accused and pronounce its order on the applications.
Bahaur Rehman, Liaquat Ali, Mohammad Tariq, Manthar Ali, Shahid Zafar and Afzal Khan of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, and a private contractor, Afsar Khan, have been charged with the murder of Sarfraz Shah, who was shot at and then left to die inside a park in Clifton on June 8.
They were booked under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 36 (effect caused partly by act and partly by omission) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
