KARACHI, Feb 1: An anti-terrorism court reserved on Tuesday judgement in a kidnapping for ransom case, involving sons of three senior government officials.
Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch of the ATC-5 fixed Feb 4 after he heard final arguments from the prosecution and defence attorneys.
The gang of kidnappers, comprising sons of a senior superintendent of police, a senior preventive officer of Customs and a deputy controller of the Karachi Building Control Authority, was busted late last year.
Suspects Mujeeb Khan Bhutto and Ghulam Murtaza Khan Bhutto, both sons of SPO Rano Khan Bhutto, and their alleged accomplice Saeed Naqi were arrested in Manchester immediately after the delivery of the ransom amount and the subsequent release of the victim, Ahmed Naeem, son of a Mecedeze vehicle dealer, in Karachi.
A close liaison between Manchester and Karachi police on investigation in the case led to the immediate arrest of Fida Khoso, son of SSP Nadir Khoso and Junaid Ansari, son of KBCA official Abdur Rehman Ansari, and their alleged accomplice Qurban Khoso, in Karachi.
A special team of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) and Anti-violence Crime Cell (AVCC) started the investigation after the victim's father, Mohammed Ahmed of Shahnawaz Motors, reported the matter to the authorities.
The investigators intercepted ransom calls originating from Manchester. The kidnappers called the victim's family and initially demanded Rs50 million for his release. However, after a series of negotiations on phone from Manchester, the kidnapper agreed to the ransom of 56,000 pounds sterling (Rs6.1 million). The gang is also stated to be involved in the kidnapping of a builder, Mohammad Ali, who was released after the payment of ransom in Manchester.
HAIDERI MOSQUE BLAST: The same court (ATC-5) put off the hearing of the Haideri Mosque bomb blast case against a worker of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi after recording the statements of two prosecution witnesses.
The judge fixed Feb 3 for the next hearing after the deposition of Dr Farhat Abbas of the Aga Khan Hospital and Dr Shaukat Ali Rajbput of the Liaqat National Hospital, who were also cross-examined by the defence counsel.
As many as 26 people were killed and 98 others injured on May 7 when a suicide bomber blew himself inside the Haideri mosque on the premises of the historic Sindh Madarsatul Islam.
The LJ man, Gul Hasan, is stated to have been the mastermind of bomb blasts at Haideri Mosque and Imambargah Ali Raza. Dr Farhat Abbas stated that 22 victims of the blast were brought to the Aga Khan hospital. He said four of them died of wounds, while 18 injured were discharged from the hospital on different days after the treatment.
Dr Shaukat Ali Rajput deposed that as many as 40 blast victims were shifted to Liaquat National Hospital where four of them succumbed to their injuries and the remaining were treated at the hospital. Special public prosecutor Mazhar Qayyum has, so far, examined 43 prosecution witnesses.
RANSOM CASE: Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the ATC-3 put off hearing of a kidnapping for ransom case after recording the testimony of the victim's father. According to prosecution, Zahid Makrani, Jhangir Makrani, Bbab and Shahzad Makrani kidnapped Hasan Javed, 3, son of Javed Iqbal in December last from Iqbal Centre, a residential-cumcommercial plaza on the M. A. Jinnah Road.
Special public prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa examined the victim's father, a spares dealer, as the first prosecution witness. He deposed that the accused demanded Rs50,000 from him on phone. He said they asked him to deliver the money at a place in Chakiwara.
Javed Iqbal submitted that he reported the matter to the police before he reached the designated spot accordingly. The four accused approached him and received the ransom.
He said the kidnappers asked him to wait for his child there and left him waiting in his car. He said after an hour, the four accused appeared with his son in the lap of accused Shahzad.
The victim's father stated that as Shahzad handed his kid to him in his car, plain-clothes policemen arrested him red-handed with a pistol. He said three other accused disappeared in the narrow lanes of the vicinity as they saw their accomplice being caught.
The judge fixed Wednesday for the next hearing after the deposition of the first prosecution witness, who was also cross-examined by defence counsel Ashfaq Rafique Janjua.