On court's order: ACLC police party booked for killing three 'suspects'

Petitioner says victim was picked from home and killed in fake encounter

KARACHI: Manghopir police registered a case of kidnapping and murder under Sections 365, 302/34 against the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) police party involved in the killings of three alleged suspects in a suspected police encounter on October 15. The case was registered on the order of the court.

The case was registered on the complaint of Akbar Ali, son of Mor Khan and a brother of the deceased, Asadullah Imrani. The police said that Ali had submitted a petition to the court claiming that an ACLC police party had kidnapped his brother from his house in Manghopir along with his car and later killed him in Gulshan Maymar in a police encounter. The petitioner claimed that a medical report identified that Imrani was tortured to death. The family demanding justice sought probe into the incident.  The court ordered the Manghopir police to record the petitioner's statement and after investigation, register a case. The police, in light of the statement of Imrani's neighbour and other evidences, registered the case.

Further investigation of the case will be carried out by the investigation police.

According to details of the case, on the night between the 15th and the 16th, three persons had been killed in an alleged police encounter near Northern Bypass within the jurisdiction of Gulshan Maymar Police Station.

The bodies of the deceased were brought in two ambulances to Jinnah hospital. Initially, the driver of the Edhi ambulance said that officials of the Gulshan-e-Maymar police station had handed over the bodies to him. When the driver contacted the same police official from his mobile phone at the hospital, he was informed that the ACLC had killed the three suspects in an encounter and not the Gulshan-e-Maymar police station.

The Express Tribune tried to contact the ACLC Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) multiple times but the calls were rejected. However, after some time, the ACLC issued a message confirming that an encounter had taken place at MD Cut Chowk in which an ACLC inspector, Shahzad, was involved. The message said that three suspects had been killed.

The suspects were identified as Shehbaz Abbasi, aged 35, Ashok Kumar, 40, and Imrani, 35. The suspects killed in the encounter were residents of interior Sindh and were part of an interprovincial car-lifter gang.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2018.