Decade-old murder case: Alleged target killers sent to police custody

KARACHI:

The incompetency of the Sindh Police came to the forefront on Monday when law enforcers presented two alleged target killers implicated in an 'untouched' decade-old murder case before an anti-terrorism court (ATC).

The suspects, Ubaid alias K2 and Nadir Shah, were arrested during the March 11 raid at the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) headquarters. They were named nearly 15 years ago in a case for killing two police officers in Soldier Bazaar.

The prosecution, however, remained silent until Monday as neither were they declared as proclaimed offenders nor was their case termed as A-class.

The prosecution sought the remand of the suspects in the murder case of two SIs — Rehan and Nisar. The deceased policemen were part of the 1992 operation team. The ATC-III judge Saleem Raza Baloch expressed his displeasure over the performance of the police.

The judge asked the investigation officer (IO) of the case, DSP Rahim Shah, why the court was not intimated about the case since its registration. The officer could not give any satisfactory answer. The judge, in return, issued a show-cause notice to the IO. Besides this, the court also sought comments from an SP investigation of East zone over why the report of the case was not submitted to the court.

The court granted the police custody of the suspects for three days. The two suspects along with their absconding accomplices — Asif alais Dandan, Javed Shahpuri, Abid alias Miru, Shahid, Javed Akhtar Siddiqi and others, were named in the case back in 2000 on a complaint filed by the brother of one of the deceased policemen.

The complainant, Irfan, had lodged a complaint which stated that his brother, Rehan, actively took part in 'operation clean-up' along with police officers Chaudhry Aslam and Sarwar Commando, and used to tell him that he was receiving threats from the said persons who belonged to a political party.

Rehan and Nisar were gunned down in March 2000 in Soldier Bazaar on their way home from work.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2015.