FIA report contradicts Punjab police claims

Babur Sindhu, accused by Punjab police in the LHC CJ assassination plot, says provincial top guns behind bogus report.

ISLAMABAD:

The Punjab police’s inquiry report into the alleged plot to assassinate Chief Justice Lahore High Court Justice Khawaja Mohammad Sharif has suffered a dent to its credibility.

The report, which has been handed over to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and has also appeared in the media, does not contain a statement of the very man the Punjab police claim was the ringleader of the alleged plot – Babur Sindhu. The Punjab police report – prepared by a four-member inquiry team led by DIG Mushtaq Sukhera – claims that Sindhu is absconding and could not be located to pinpoint his role in the alleged plot, suggesting that he is untraceable.

However, contrary to this assertion, a 449-page inquiry report by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), conducted on the orders of the Supreme Court, has a 10-page written statement by Sindhu, who appeared, in person, before the FIA in Karachi. The FIA report had already been handed over to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as well as Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

In fact, more interestingly, the FIA report also contains a statement that charges the DIG Sukhera-led inquiry team with “torturing, threatening and bribing” a sub-inspector, who they wanted to be the fall-guy in the case. The team is said to have pressed Sub-Inspector Shakeel Hassan to ‘confess’ to having issued the source report regarding the alleged plot to assassinate Justice Khawaja Sharif.

A cancer patient, Shakeel, in his written statement before an FIA inquiry commission, claimed that he never issued  any such source report – and added that, for denying his role, he was now facing threats from his superiors, who wanted him to own a bogus report which he neither authored nor saw.

Director FIA Zafar Ahmed Qureshi in his inquiry report has already concluded that, despite investigating and interviewing 41 people during two months of inquiry, the alleged source report of the Punjab police’s Special Branch was not a “verifiable” document and as such no plot existed to kill Justice Sharif, as reported in The News on September 10.

Moreover, the alleged ringleader of this plot, Babar Sindhu, in his written statement said that he was deliberately mentioned in the bogus report at the behest of Punjab government to malign the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the eyes of public, media and judiciary. He claimed that the top guns of Punjab government were behind this intrigue – which created a storm a few months ago.

The FIA report confirms that Sindhu not only joined investigations after an inquiry was ordered by Supreme Court of Pakistan, but also cooperated with the inquiry team and faced counter questions in the light of his handwritten statement.

The source report of the alleged plot claimed that Babar Sindhu was brought from Karachi to Lahore to assassinate Justice Khawaja Sharif, and was now absconding from the authorities. However, Babar Sindhu, in his statement in FIA inquiry report, claimed that he had not even visited Lahore over the last nine months.

In his statement, which has also been attached with the FIA report already submitted to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sindhu’s strongly denies any link with the reported plot to assassinate Justice Khawaja Sharif, the Chief Justice of the LHC. Sindhu stated that he was an ordinary worker of the PPP and that his party respected the judiciary and the story was published as part of a campaign to malign the PPP and its workers, and that top authorities of Punjab were behind the bid.

He also said that this was not first time that he had become a target of a conspiracy. Back in 1999, he said, he was offloaded from a Dubai-bound plane on the excuse that his passport had some problem, though, he said, he had a valid UAE resident visa. Later, he continued, he was told that he had been arrested on charges of motorcycle-snatching. After three days of detention, he was released. But, he further added, he was again arrested – this time on charges of killing Justice Nazim Siddiqi and his son, though he had nothing to do with that either. Two accused had already been booked in the Justice Nizam murder case – but they were both declared innocent and, instead, his name was put in the charge-sheet, he said.

Interestingly, that happened while the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz was in power in the centre and in Sindh – like they currently are in Punjab.

Back then, Rana Maqbool was appointed IG Sindh along with infamous inspector Naveed Saeed. He continued to appear in court for 12 years to clear his name from Justice Nizam case until he was acquitted on July 29, 2010, by a special court in Karachi as not a single witness could be produced in the court against him.

Regarding the current case, in which he is said to be a part of the alleged plot to assassinate Justice Khawaja Sharif, he said that he had faxed his denial to the Jang newspaper regarding his involvement, saying that he had not even heard of the people supposedly involved in the alleged plot. He stated that he was running his business in Karachi for the last eight years, had a registered company that was paying proper tax to the government and was also a member of the chamber of commerce.

Regarding his last visit to Lahore, Sindhu stated that he was in the city in Decemeber 2009 for a case hearing. He further stated that, for the last eight months, he was in Karachi to contest his case and anyone could get obtain records from the court in Karachi about his regular attendance.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2010.