KARACHI: An antiterrorism court indicted on Saturday chief of the banned Peoples Amn Committee Uzair Jan Baloch in seven cases.

The PAC chief along with alleged Lyari gangsters — Amin Buledi, Ramzan alias Ramzani, Abdul Ghaffar alias Mama and Zubair Baloch — has been booked in five murder cases, including the killing of an SHO, and two cases of police encounters registered during the 2012 Lyari operation.

The ATC-VI judge, who is conducting the trial after amalgamating all the cases inside the Karachi central prison, read out charges against the accused to which they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the cases.

The judge summonsed prosecution witnesses directing them to appear in court to record their evidence on April 24.

Uzair Jan Baloch, who is facing multiple cases including the murder of rival gangster Arshad Pappu, was arrested under mysterious circumstances in January 2016. He was held under 90-day preventive detention by Rangers, who later handed him over to police.

Once known for his close association with the Pakistan Peoples Party, particularly some of the PPP’s leaders, Uzair was declared proclaimed offender in over 40 cases pending before ATCs.

Around 35 cases pertaining to murder, attempted murder and attack on police were registered against him and his accomplices during an operation conducted by police in Lyari in 2012.

He is also facing trial along with a PPP MNA from Lyari and some police officers in the triple murder of Arshad Pappu, his brother Yasir Arafat and their confidant Juma Shera, who were killed in Lyari after being kidnapped from Defence in March 2013.

Jundullah militants

The same court on Saturday directed the Sindh home secretary to produce 11 condemned prisoners in court so that they could face trial in another case pertaining to a 2004 deadly attack on a police station.

The 11 men — Attaur Rehman alias Ibrahim, Shahzad Ahmed Bajwah, Yaqoob Saeed, Uzair Ahmed, Shoaib Siddiqui, Danish Inam, Najeebullah, Khurrum Saifullah, Shahzad Mukhtar, Khalid Rao and Adnan Shah — all associated with the banned Jundullah outfit, have been sentenced to death by an ATC some 11 years ago in a case pertaining to an attack on the convoy of the Karachi corps commander in Clifton in 2004.

The same set of accused along with Qasim Toori have also been booked for allegedly storming the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station in April 2014 and killing a sub-inspector and four policemen.

The court had issued their production orders several times, but the jail officials remained unable to produce them. They informed the court that they were currently detained at the Hyderabad prison.

Therefore, the court, through a letter, directed the provincial home secretary to transfer the prisoners from Hyderabad to Karachi prison and ensure their presence in the 13-year-old case before it on April 20.

Meanwhile, the court provided copies of prosecution’s papers to Qasim Toori, a mandatory procedure before the indictment, and directed the investigation officer to complete the proceedings of proclamation and attachment of property against absconders till the next hearing.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2017