Sarfraz Shah murder case: Defence lawyers grill investigator

Toy pistol presented in court as evidence.

KARACHI:

When the cross-examination of Mohammad Mobeen, an inspector at the Boat Basin police station, was finally over on Tuesday at the anti-terrorism court, Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso told him to go distribute sweetmeats. “Aap jaen, mithai baant aen.”

Mobeen had every reason to smile as he left the hearing in the high-profile Sarfraz Shah murder case. The officer - described by defence counsel as one of the smartest, toughest investigating officers they knew - had just gone through over two hours of cross examination by one lawyer alone. The other three lawyers grilled him extensively, even though Shaukat Hayat’s questioning earlier on, had left little room for other angles to open up.

Mobeen, a 24-year veteran in the police force, was well-prepared. So well prepared in fact that defence lawyer Naimutallah Randhawa asked Mobeen to hold up his left palm, ostensibly to show the court that the officer had scribbled notes on it to aid his memory.

Mobeen was made a member of the investigation team on June 11, three days after the killing of the 22-year-old Sarfraz. But according to a letter shown by Hayat, Mobeen was also ordered to investigate two alleged robberies by the young victim. Mobeen said he was unaware of any such order.

He then retraced the events of June 11. Hayat grilled Mobeen extensively, trying to pin him down on dates and times and the modus operandi. Mobeen’s stock answer - “This is for the investigating officer. Why don’t you ask him?” - didn’t satisfy Hayat or the other lawyers.

Hayat still managed to elicit a number of facts from Mobeen: that his statements were actually transcribed by SI Aslam while he was being questioned by DSP Altaf Hussain, that the police did not interview any witness to the actual shooting, and that none of the police officers wrote a script of the recording of the video.

While being questioned of his knowledge of the Rangers personnel and civilian Afsar Khan, Mobeen burst out and pointed to the men sitting in the court. “Why don’t you name them? Afsar is sitting right here with Manthar Ali!”

At one point Mobeen appeared extremely annoyed with the line of questioning. Defence lawyer MR Sayed responded smoothly with: “Me sawal baray pyar se poochunga, ap jawab bhi pyar se dijiega.” [I’ll ask you real nice, and you can answer just as nicely too.] Mobeen testified that call records proved that Khan had called the Rangers; however, he proclaimed ignorance of why Khan had done so.

Hayat saved his best ammunition for the end. “These guns that are listed in the memo recording evidence, and that have been produced in the court, are sufficient enough to create a big disaster of terrorism - to kill people and destruct property. When you picked up the evidence (from the park) on June 11, did you see any destruction caused by the weapons?”

Mobeen testified that he had not, and the park and food street at the Boat Basin area were not shut down in the aftermath of Shah’s death.

Hayat suggested that the witnesses who testified that they had been ‘terrorised’ by the incident had only seen it on TV, were not eyewitnesses and had been induced to testify by complainant Salik Shah (Sarfraz’s brother) after the police and Shah decided to run a ticker on a television channel asking witnesses to come forward.

Lawyers MR Sayed and Randhawa asked Mobeen about the discrepancies in his witness statements made under the Criminal Procedure Code, which were again referred to the investigating officer or those transcribing his words. Randhawa suggested that the video given by Awaz TV to the police had been doctored and lawyer Amjad Warraich went a step further, wondering if evidence had been suppressed and if investigating officer Faqirdad had been sidelined. Warraich also pointed out that the police statements appear to have been recorded without officers being in full knowledge of the facts, which Mobeen refuted, saying that they were recorded in parts.

Warraich also asked for the “toy pistol” recovered from Shah to be shown in court as part of the evidence that was brought there on Tuesday (along with bricks from the park and guns used by the Rangers officers). As defence lawyers examined it enthusiastically, Warraich asked Mobeen whether the pistol was quite similar to the real version, which he denied.

The court will resume hearing the case at noon on Wednesday. Abdul Salam Soomro, a cameraperson with Awaz TV, is scheduled to testify.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2011.