KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday issued notices to suspended Malir SSP Rao Anwar and others in a petition seeking transfer of Naqeeb murder case and another case to some other antiterrorism court.

The then SSP Malir along with his subordinates has been facing trial before the ATC-II for allegedly killing Naseemullah, better known as Naqeebullah Mehsud, and three others in a staged encounter on Jan 13 in a Malir locality.

He has also been facing charges pertaining to framing the four men in explosives and illicit weapon cases.

Naqeeb’s father Mohammad Khan, through his lawyer Faisal Siddiqui, moved the SHC stating that he had no confidence in the judge of the ATC-II who was hearing both cases.

He submitted that the trial court was allegedly giving undue benefits to the suspects by not passing orders on his objections and he had reasonable apprehension that the presiding officer of the trial court would not be able to act fairly and impartially while deciding the cases.

The petitioner further submitted that the trial court had developed a bias in favour of Rao Anwar and his subordinates and the bias was apparent since to date the presiding officer had failed to consider and pass any order on the applicant’s written objections.

He maintained that it was a settled principle that while hearing a bail application a court should not go into deeper appreciation of evidence.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2018