Shahid Hamid murder case: Non-bailable warrants of arrest issued for Altaf Hussain and others

MQM chief and other leaders have been charged with instigating the murder

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) issued warrants against Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief and other party leaders in a 1997 triple murder case.

The judge issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Altaf Hussain and others on a supplementary charge-sheet filed by the police after 19 years, charging them with instigating the murder of then-managing director of the Karachi Electric Supply Company, Shahid Hamid, his guard and driver.

Police have booked Mohammad Minhaj Qazi alias Asad, along with his accomplices on allegations of murdering Hamid, his driver and guard in Defence Housing Authority in 1997.



In May last year, the main suspect, MQM worker Saulat Ali Khan, also known as Saulat Mirza, was executed in the Mach Jail in Balochistan. The ATC had sentenced Mirza to death in the triple murder case in 1999.

The arrest warrants for the party leaders were issued on the basis of an investigation report filed by the police during one of the last hearings, in which they charge-sheeted Qazi as one of the alleged shooters. The report stated that Qazi and Mirza, along with two accomplices, had fired at the victim's car with Kalashnikov rifles.

They also named the MQM chief, party convener Nadeem Nusrat and London-based leader Sohail Zaidi as absconders in the supplementary charge-sheet for allegedly instigating the offense.

Judge Mohammed Jawaid Alam of the ATC-V, who took up the matter on Wednesday, issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of the absconders.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2016.