Fourth-time lucky: Top court to hear Perween’s murder case in Islamabad

Bench will start hearing arguments on March 16

ISLAMABAD:

The top court has finally decided to transfer hearings of the high-profile Perween Rehman murder case from its Karachi registry to the principal seat in Islamabad. The hearing has been fixed before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali on March 16.

Today is the third death anniversary of the social activist, who was shot dead in Karachi on March 13, 2013. The police have failed to trace the masterminds of her killing.

The Supreme Court took the decision to transfer the case on the fourth request of the petitioners, including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and other non-profit organisations and civil society members.

Parween, a media-shy social worker and then director of the Orangi Pilot Project, devoted her life to the development of the impoverished neighbourhoods across the country. She was gunned down near her office in Orangi Town.

The next day, police killed a Taliban operative named Qari Bilal in an encounter and claimed he was the murderer of the social activist, resulting in the closure of the murder case.

On April 15, 2014 however, the Supreme Court ordered the authorities to launch a fresh investigation into the case after a judicial inquiry revealed the police officers had manipulated the inquiry. The Sindh police then registered an FIR under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997.

A senior official told The Express Tribune the Joint Investigation Agency (JIT) formed to probe the case had been under immense pressure to give up the inquiry allegedly involving land as well as tanker mafias of Karachi. JITs are mandatory for cases filed under anti-terror clauses.

Lawyer Faisal Siddiqi, who has been closely observing the investigations, lamented police had failed to identify the masterminds behind Perween’s murder for the past three years. “The police are deliberately hushing up the case. The way this probe has been conducted shows there is definite collusion of police in this murder,” he alleged.

At the last hearing, Faisal said the police had identified the prime accused as Rahim Swati but were not sure about his arrest. The case had been heard by the Islamabad bench till July 6, 2015. The former chief justice transferred the case to the Karachi registry, as it was related to Sindh’s provincial capital. The case could not be properly argued in Karachi because of several reasons, including threats received by the heirs of Perween.

Advocate Raheel Kamran Sheikh, who is arguing the case in the top court, said his application for case transfer was rejected three times. “You cannot imagine how much difficulty we have faced in the transfer of this case because our earlier applications could not be placed before the appropriate forum for passing the order,” he complained.

Raheel said the petition was filed in Islamabad on July 30, 2013, and the advocate on record for this case, Syed Safdar Hussain, was also from Islamabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2016.