White Corolla gang: Alleged serial rapist applies for bail on Monday

Ali Hajano says he was arrested to exact revenge from his high-profile father.

KARACHI: Ali Hajano, an alleged serial rapist, who rose to infamy for being part of the 'White Corolla' gang that terrorised women two years go, has applied for bail on the grounds that he is innocent and deserves "fairness" in light of the "injunctions of the Quran and Sunnah and doctrine of Adl-o Ahsan".

His two applications for bail will be heard by Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh on Monday, March 7. Hajano was booked in 33 cases by different police stations in district South. He is pleading innocence and maintains that the charges were fake and foisted on him. Prosecutor-General of Sindh Shahadat Awan is scheduled to appear for the State.

Hajano argued in his bail application that he was booked in a complaint filed on January 6, 2008 by a person who came out of Marble Arch Marriage Hall, Khayaban-e-Jami at 10pm with his wife. The complainant alleged that he was robbed at gunpoint by two men in a white Corolla car. This car later became a notorious among residents of DHA and Clifton for looting people, abducting women for a few hours and raping them.

Hajano went on to submit that his father Gul Muhammad Hajano, a former EDO Education for Karachi, was a political figure at the national level and is a head of the "Ehiteram-e-Insaniyat" political party. His father, who retired in grade 20, was a former candidate for the post of the president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The authorities harbored ill will against my father, had four bogus FIRs registered against him, which were later quashed by different courts, Hajano maintained. He claimed that his father's political enemies included former dictator General Pervez Musharraf, Dr Farooq Sattar, MNA Kushbakht Shujaat and other military and paramilitary personnel and bureaucrats.

It was in order to exact revenge from his father, argued Hajano, that his elder brother Muhammad Yasir was killed with the connivance of a political party and the police.

Hajano said that he was booked in two bogus FIRs by the Korangi Industrial area police and another by the CID police, but he was exonerated. Since January 24, 2009, officers from the rank of Capital City Police Officer to all investigating officers of Darakhshan had attempted to kill him, the accused rapist maintained.

He claimed in his application for bail that he was arrested from his quarters on January 21, 2009 at 9:30 pm but was shown to be arrested red handed from the scene of a crime. He argued that he deserves bail as the offences he was booked under do not fall within the prohibitory clause 497 (2) of the CrPC. He also argued that he was arrested in a blind FIR, there was delay in lodging the complaint and he was forced to make extra-judicial confessions.

Hajano said that he was not previously convicted or a hardened or desperate criminal and there could be no apprehensions that he would tamper with evidence. Prosecutors in different cases have a list of 250 witnesses against him and thus the trial could take years before concluding, he submitted. He has also argued that as he was exonerated in one of the 33 cases for a lack of evidence, the credibility of the remaining cases were doubtful.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2011.