Kharotabad shooting: Tajik couple shown opening fire in new clip

The video is submitted by IT expert as evidence.

QUETTA:

The judicial tribunal set up for investigating the Kharotabad incident, headed by Justice Hashim Kakar, completed the process of recording statements of witnesses on Wednesday.

Justice Kakar said that he would submit the report on the May 17 incident to the Balochistan government after including his findings.

An information technology specialist, Sajjad
Hyder, recorded his statement on Wednesday and also presented a disc, two USBs and two CDs before the tribunal in which a man and woman were shown opening fire.

The people in the video were identified by police officials as Nauman and his wife, Olga, both Tajik nationals, who were gunned down along with three others by Frontier Corps (FC) and police in Kharotabad area. The couple was buried in Quetta  after their Tajik parents visited the hospital and identified them.

Sajjad told the tribunal that he reached the site at 4:45 pm and he was handed data seized from the bodies by the police.

The video also purportedly shows people making suicide jackets and bombs. However, the identities of the people involved could not be determined.

The tribunal has so far recorded the statements of 28 witnesses, including 10 private witnesses, during its formal hearing which started on June 1.

Meanwhile, the Balochistan High Court expressed discontent after a statement made by the CCPO, claiming that the police had deliberately not taken tortured Police Surgeon Dr Baqar Shah to the police station.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice Balochistan High Court Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Hashim Kakar asked the officials concerned to submit a progress report into the investigation during the hearing of a suo motu case here on Wednesday.

CCPO Quetta Ghalib Bandesha and the suspended SHOs appeared before the court. Bandesha stated that a case was registered regarding the torture of the surgeon and that it was a mere coincidence that police personnel brought Shah to the police station.

He added that two SHOs have been suspended in this regard.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.