KARACHI, April 18: The charge-sheet against four suspects in a murder case is almost ready, but absence of witnesses has become a big question in ensuring that justice is restored.
The case pertained to an apparent robbery bid during which a lady doctor was killed, right in the neighbourhood of the Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali's residence last month.
Since the PM had been visiting the city when the doctor's body was found, several days after the murder, in an apartment near Mr Jamali's residence, the incident had brought much embarrassment to the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police.
The 62-year-old homeopathic doctor, Sumeira Siddiqui, was shot in the head and the bullet had split her skull into two, exposing the brain, as police and hospital sources had revealed.
The doctor had her residence and clinic in the same building. She lived alone in her apartment as one of her sons, earlier living with her, had moved to Muscat, Oman.
While the police were groping in the dark over the mysterious murder and the motive, a woman, probably living in the same apartment building, provided a clue to the killers. Calling from a PCO, she told police that she had seen two frantic youths in the apartment when the murder might have taken place.
She named the youths as Zeeshan and Masroor. It transpired later that Masroor was the son of a local councillor. The caller revealed that two other persons had been spotted waiting downstairs for the alleged killers.
Dr Siddiqui's other son, Mr Tariq, told Dawn that the caller had remained anonymous till date. Acting upon the tip off, the police made considerable headway and arrested four suspects who, according to Mr Tariq, confessed to their crime during interrogation by police.
Mr Tariq recalled that a watchman of the Noman Complex had been killed a few years back. Though the suspects had been arrested later, they had to be freed on bail as there was no witness in the case, he added.
The investigating officer in the case lady doctor's murder case, Malick Meher, verified Zeeshan's criminal background, saying that he was currently on bail in the case of the watchman's murder.
"Police are asking us to bring a witness in the case and telling us that the suspects would have to be freed if we failed," dejected Tariq told Dawn. He also stated that he was facing immense pressures from all sides to keep silent and let the matter hushed up.
Inspector Meher, briefing Dawn about his investigation, said that two of the suspects had actually gone to the apartment with an intention of committing robbery. However, when they had been holding the lady doctor at gunpoint and searching for the bounty, one of them called the other by name - Zeeshan.
Though the suspects could not find the booty, barring an amount of Rs300 during the search, they could not leave their hostage alive as she had already got the name of one of the robbers, the IO stated. Furthermore, he added, the lady doctor knew that Zeeshan lived in the same building.
He said that Mansoor alias Chacha is the son of a local councillor, Zahoor Ahmed. "We had recovered two TT pistols from the suspects. In a few days, I will finalize the challan against the four suspects who are in jail custody," the IO said.