Customs official murder case: Court summons Ayyan, IO today

Model asks magistrate to drop murder charge against her

RAWALPINDI: Model Ayyan Ali and the investigation officer in the murder case of a customs officer have been directed to appear before a lower court today (Thursday).

The model moved an application on Wednesday with Magistrate Gulfam Latif Butt saying that the Waris Khan police were not ready to include her written statement regarding the murder of Customs Inspector Chaudhry Ejaz Mahmood in the official investigation record.

In her application, the model claims that she sent her statement to the Waris Khan police through a courier in June, but the police did not entertain it and obtained warrants for her arrest.

She said investigators were not ready to record her statement and that the court needed to record her statement in the courtroom.

In the written statement she had sent to the Waris Khan police, Ali said she was in Adiala jail on June 2, 2015 when Mahmood was murdered. She noted that she did not know him and had no links with his murder.

The model further said that customs officials investigating the currency smuggling case against her submitted their first investigation report on April 24, 2015 and a second report on May 27, 2015. In both reports, the inspector was not listed as a prosecution witness against her, she added.

The currency recovered on March 14, 2015 was deposited in the National Bank as case property and there was no question that Mahmood was custodian of the currency as claimed by his widow, Ali said.

The model asked the police to drop the charges against her as the wife of the deceased inspector had implicated her in the case many months after the killing.

Meanwhile, Saima Ejaz, the widow, had moved an application with the interior ministry saying that a joint investigation team needed to be formed for a fair investigation.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2016.