Saad Aziz confesses to murdering policeman

Saad Aziz, one of the suspects behind the Safoora massacre, implicated in two new cases

KARACHI: The police seems to have found the key culprits behind the recent unrest in Karachi in the form of the Safoora bus attackers, as they are being implicated in new cases with each passing day based on their 'revelations' during the ongoing investigation.

Since their arrest in May, they have been remanded in a number of cases, including the murder of The Second Floor director Sabeen Mahmud, the attack on Jinnah Dental College's American professor Debra Lobo, the bombing on Imam bargahs and schools and others.

On Tuesday, the investigators brought Saad Aziz, alias Tin Tin, one of the suspects behind the Safoora massacre, to court in relation to two new cases. They contended that during interrogation, he confessed to murdering a policeman and attacking a police mobile with a hand grenade.

In the policeman killing case, Aziz was charged with the murder of Rapid Response Force personnel Waqar Hashmi, who was gunned down in September last year near Power House Chowrangi in New Karachi. The case, being termed A-class, remained on the back burner due to a lack of leads about the suspects, until Aziz 'confessed' his involvement in it.

In the same manner, the police mobile attack case was also reopened as the suspect revealed the plot and was identified by a person injured in the incident.

According to the prosecution, Aziz in collusion with his absconding accomplices, Umer alias Haider Abbas and Ali Rehman, had thrown a ball bomb at a police mobile parked near Hyderi Market in North Nazimabad in August of last year. Two people, including an ASI, were injured in the attack, while the police vehicle was partially damaged.

The ATC-II judge, who is hearing most of the suspects' cases except the main bus attack case, after listening to the arguments, sent the suspects to police custody on a12-day physical remand till June 28. Almost all the cases against the suspects will be heard again on the same date.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2015.