Shahid Hamid murder case: MQM chief, others declared proclaimed offenders

The triple murder case dates back to 1997

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) declared on Friday Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain and others proclaimed offenders in a triple murder case dating back to 1997.

Muhammad Minhaj Qazi alias Asad along with his accomplices has been booked in the murder of the then managing director (MD) of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), Malik Shahid Hamid, his driver and his guard in the Defence Housing Authority in 1997.



Police had submitted an investigation report in which they charge-sheeted Qazi as one of the alleged shooters, adding that he and Saulat Mirza, along with their two other accomplices, had fired at the car of the KESC MD with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

They had also named the MQM chief, party convener Nadeem Nusrat, London-based leader Sohail Zaidi and two workers, Rashid Akhtar and Athar Hussain, as absconders in the supplementary charge-sheet. Subsequently, the court had twice issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of the absconders during the course of proceedings, but the police failed to execute the same.

At the previous hearing, the court directed the investigating officer to start the proceedings against the absconding accused under Sections 87 (proclamation for persons absconding) and 88 (attachment of property of person absconding) of the Criminal Procedure Code and submit the report. The IO submitted the report.



While declaring the MQM chief and others proclaimed offenders, the ATC-V judge, Muhammad Jawaid Alam, issued life warrants against them and said their case file be kept dormant till their arrest. The court is likely to indict the detained suspect on August 5.

An ATC had already sentenced MQM worker Saulat Ali Khan, better known as Saulat Mirza, to death in 1999 in this case. He was executed in Machh jail in Balochistan on May 12, 2015.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2016.