Safari Park police encounter: As police finish investigations, court asks for charge sheet

ATC asks all details in the charge sheet about the release of five suspects held earlier.

KARACHI: The law enforcers probing the Safari Park police encounter case have completed the investigations and have been asked to submit a charge sheet before an anti-terrorism court (ATC) today.

Following the investigations into the five-hour-long encounter in and around the Safari Park on August 15 in which DSP Qasim Ghauri and ASI Asif were killed and five other police officers were wounded, the police have submitted the charge sheet before the prosecutor for scrutiny.



According to the prosecution, the police had arrested nine suspects after the encounter and found illicit weapons in their possession. The prosecution added that their three accomplices, identified as Zaman Shah, Amir Bukhsh Chachar and Umaid Ali, were killed during the shoot-out. During the encounter, five police officers, Malik Saleem, Bahadurabad SHO Haider Zaidi, ASI Aslam, ASI Amanullah and police constable Azhar, were injured. They have been included as witnesses in the case by the police.

In the charge sheet, the police have shown four suspects, Baral Shah, Raja Pathan, Ali Bhangora and a brother of a policeman, Kashif, as absconders, while it is mentioned that four others, Ahmer, Ranjhan, Imran alias Toofan and Allah Wadayo are already in police custody.

Earlier, the police had told an anti-terrorism court that five of the nine suspects, Abdul Ghaffar, Mohabbat Ali, Abdul Malik, Samiullah and Imtiaz, arrested in the case had been released for want of evidence.

Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso of the ATC-I while accepting the report had directed the investigators to submit the charge sheet. The court had also sought a detailed report under Section 173 about the released suspects by the next hearing. The police have been asked to submit it in court today. All the suspects were also booked under section 23-A of the Sindh Arms Ordinance for carrying unlicenced weapons.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2013.