Saleem Shahzad killing: Commission examines highway’s CCTV footage

Hamid Mir records statement, presents CD regarding the journalist’s murder.

ISLAMABAD:

The judicial commission established to investigate the mysterious killing of journalist Saleem Shahzad examined on Tuesday CCTV footage of the highway where Shahzad’s car was found.

The footage was submitted by the National Highway Authority.

The commission has also written, through the foreign ministry, to a foreign company seeking Shahzad’s complete email records.

The meeting held at the Supreme Court building was attended by Justice Saqib Nisar, Federal Shariat Court Chief Justice Agha Rafiq, Islamabad Inspector General Police (IGP) Bin Yamin, Punjab IGP Javed Iqbal and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists President Pervaiz Shaukat.

Meanwhile, senior journalist Hamid Mir recorded his statement. He also presented a CD regarding the journalist’s killing. The disc’s contents will be considered today (Wednesday).

Zafar Sheikh, a close friend of Shahzad’s, also recorded his statement. The commission was informed that Shahzad’s laptop and mobile phone had still not been recovered.

The commission also summoned Shafiq and Raja Nisar, who had recovered the journalist’s body from a canal in Mandi Bahauddin.

Earlier on Monday, the commission recorded the statement of Shahzad’s brother-in-law while the Mandi Bahauddin police handed over the articles recovered from the victim’s vehicle.

Before the commission’s meeting, Justice Nisar heard a separate application by Amna Masood Janjua regarding her husband who went missing in 2007. Janjua had contended on June 29 that her spouse was alive after which the Supreme Court summoned the interior and defence secretaries to appear before Justice Iqbal to inform him about Masood’s whereabouts.

Later, Deputy Attorney-General KK Agha informed the bench that every place pointed out by Janjua was searched in pursuance of the court’s orders but Masood was not found.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelt the name of Islamabad Inspector General Police (IGP) Bin Yamin as 'Bin Amin'. The correction has been done.

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