Slain KESC MD’s family says MQM leaders threatened him

Widow and son of Shahid Hamid name Farooq Sattar, Wasim Akhtar and Nasreen Jalil

KARACHI: The widow and son of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) managing director Shahid Hamid, who was slain in 1997, have deposed that he had been threatened by some Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaders before his assassination took place.

They said that MQM parliamentarian Farooq Sattar, Karachi mayoral candidate Wasim Akhtar, senator Nasreen Jalil, her husband and Shoaib Bukhari extended threats to Shahid on several occasions and also insulted him once during a high-level meeting, when the then chief minister had to intervene to control the situation.



The statement from the mother-son duo came before a District South judicial magistrate, Anees Rehman Buriro, on Saturday during the identification parade of a recently arrested suspect, Minhaj Qazi. Qazi has been identified as one of the assailants by both of them, who are eyewitnesses of the incident that took place some 19 years ago.

Shahid, along with his driver and guard, was killed near his official residence in Clifton, minutes after he left for office on the morning of July 5, 1997, by some gunmen.

Widow Shahnaz Shahid Hamid and son Omar Shahid Hamid picked out Qazi from a dozen dummy suspects and told the judge that they saw him firing at the deceased.

Meanwhile, the witnesses, recorded their statement one by one under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before the judge, in which they said that there were four assailants in a white Margalla car. Qazi was wearing shalwar kameez while Saulat Mirza, the one who has already been executed for the murder, was clad in trousers and shirt, and both of them were firing with Kalashnikovs, they said. Two more assailants were firing from the other side.



In their identical statements, the mother-son duo told the judge that they believed that it was 'MQM terrorists' who carried out the killing for Shahid was being threatened by some party leaders wanting him to bow to their pressure. According to her, the MQM played a dominant role within KESC and considered her husband as a 'risk', who would expose them.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2016.