12 lynching suspects remanded to police custody

IO said the accused were arrested on the identification of the already arrested suspects and with help of CCTV footage

KARACHI:

The Anti-Terrorism Administrative Court has handed over 12 suspects arrested in the case of lynching of two telecom employees in Machar Colony, to the police on physical remand.

The suspects include Jan Alam, Imran, Bilal, Manan, Noorul Haq, Noor Islam, Ahmad Raza, Shafiq, Hussain, Ali Hussain, Zubair and Sharif alias Sharif.

The investigation officer (IO) said that the accused were arrested on the identification of the already arrested suspects during interrogation and with the help of CCTV footage.

The IO told the court that police have arrested 16 suspects for brutally killing Aiman Saeed and Ishaq Panwhar by hitting bricks and stones blaming them of being child kidnappers.

The engineer and driver of a telecom firm had lost their way in the slum and had stopped by to ask for directions from a child when the whole neighbourhood attacked them.

As per the IO more than 10 nominated and 250 unidentified accused are absconding in the case. Physical remand of the accused is required for interrogation and CRO, he said.

The court sent the accused to police custody on physical remand till November 7.

The court ordered the IO to submit the progress report of the investigation at the next hearing.

Four more suspects identified Four more suspects, arrested in the Machar Colony lynching case, were produced before the West district judicial magistrate.

Two eyewitnesses identified the suspects.

One of the suspects was identified by a policeman who was escorting a polio vaccination team at that time.

He stated that he tried to rescue the victims from the mob, but the mad crowd tortured him too and hit him with bricks.

The magistrate made the process of identification parade part of the trial record.