Extrajudicial killing: Police investigates if FIR against teen could be fake

Man who filed case gave different address, no witness says Sarfaraz was stealing.

KARACHI:

Police investigating the extrajudicial killing of a teenaged boy at the hands of the Rangers are looking into the possibility that the FIR filed against him is fake partly because the person who registered it did not give a proper address and because witness acounts refute the notion that Sarfaraz was stealing.

It has also surfaced that the man who dragged Sarfaraz Shah by the collar to the Rangers and filed the FIR is not a police officer as previously believed.

The case of the horrific shooting by the Rangers, caught on camera at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Park, Clifton has made international headlines. A man called Afsar Khan filed the FIR. In the video, he is the man in white who had held the 19-year-old Shah by the collar and took him to the Rangers, telling them to beat him as he was a stealing from people.

However, investigators have not been able to find any witnesses to satisfy this claim. The statements of the park’s management staff and visitors have been recorded and none of them said this about Shah. “We have spoken to a lot of people,” said an officer close to the case. “But we have not found even a single person who said that Shah was trying to rob or harass them. No one even saw him steal or trying to steal.”

Given that the FIR was lodged by Afsar Khan, the police have taken him into custody, sources  told The Express Tribune. Afsar Khan is believed to have good relations with law enforcers, especially the Rangers deputed outside the park, said an officer who has been investigating the case but who did not want to be named because of its high-profile nature. The officer said that Afsar gave a fake address while registering the FIR. He stated that he was a resident of Shireen Jinnah Colony but the police have discovered that he actually lives in Gulshan-e-Sikandarabad.

“It seems that he gave the wrong address because he feared we would conduct a raid after the case would be proven fake,” the officer speculated.

Also under the microscope is Afsar’s claim that Sarfaraz was armed. The police are looking into whether Shah had a pistol on him or not. “Now that the FIR has been proven fake, further investigations will be done under Section 182,” the officer explained. Section 182 deals with false information with the intent to cause a public servant to use his lawful powers to injure someone. The offence is punishable with six months in prison and a Rs1,000 fine.

The police could file a case against Afsar. “An FIR needs to be filed for [providing] false information and registering a fake case,” explained the officer. The police station can file such an FIR themselves. Another way is to file a petition, citing Section 22-A, at the District and Sessions Court. The court can then order the police to file the FIR.

Also part of the picture is a couple, Alam Zaib and his wife, who are Afsar Khan’s friends. Alam Zaib is believed to be a CID staffer. The police may need to take the couple in for questioning as Afsar Khan wrote in the FIR that Sarfaraz was trying to steal from them. Afsar Khan said the husband and wife were unavailable and that is why he filed the FIR on their behalf.

It has been reported that the complainant, Afsar Khan, has eight siblings, four brothers and four sisters. One of his brothers, Nadeem, used to work in Playland in Clifton. Another, Ajmal, is a labourer and earns money by washing cars.

The other 4 men

The Rangers have yet to hand over four of the six officers involved in the case over to the police. There were six jawans in the video but only two of them are being tried. “We have written to the Rangers to hand over the other men [as they are suspects],” the officer said.

Soyem

The victim’s soyem was held at his residence on Saturday. The victim’s family demanded the government kill the personnel responsible. “We don’t understand why they are making investigation teams when the Rangers took an innocent boy’s life in broad daylight,” the victim’s brother, Salik Shah, who is a Samaa TV reporter, told The Express Tribune. “Everyone saw that he was begging for his life but he was shot dead. So why are they investigating the matter?”

“Those who are responsible should have a worse fate that too in broad daylight so that no one ever does such a thing again.”





Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2011.