IG to personally supervise inquiry into extrajudicial killing

A citizen was allegedly ‘accidentally’ killed by Nawabshah police two years ago

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) directed on Thursday the Sindh inspector-general of police to personally supervise an inquiry into the kidnaping and extrajudicial killing of a man by the Nawabshah police in an alleged fake encounter.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, also directed the police chief to ensure an impartial inquiry is conducted and submit the inquiry’s report by the next hearing.

These directions came during the hearing of a petition seeking whereabouts of Abdul Jabbar Talpur, a resident of Matiari.

The missing man's father told the judges that law enforcement agency personnel had taken his son into their custody from Matiari two years ago but never disclosed his whereabouts to the family.

They were told that the provincial home department had constituted a joint investigation team on the orders of the high court, but it failed to resolve the matter.



The court was told that the Nawabshah SSP had disclosed to the petitioner that his son was taken into custody by some policemen with the intention of 'half-fry', meaning they meant to injure him in a staged encounter. However, the captive was unintentionally killed, the officer had disclosed, adding that the cops involved in staged encounter were paid for this.

During the proceedings, a report of the provincial taskforce for missing persons was also filed in the court. The report stated that first session of the JIT had already taken place but it failed to make any progress.

The bench members expressed their dissatisfaction over the taskforce's report and directed the IG to personally supervise an inquiry into the allegations leveled by the petitioner and submit a report on the inquiry's findings to the court. In the meantime, the bench also personally summoned SHO Maqsood Channa of the police station concerned on the next hearing.