Khetran sent on 10-day judicial remand

Balochistan minister had been arrested in connection with the killing of two men and a teenage girl in Barkhan

QUETTA:

A local court in Quetta sent the Balochistan Minister for Communication and Works (C&W) Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran to jail on judicial remand.

Senior police officers also appeared before the court.

Amid tight security, Sardar Khetran was produced before the judicial magistrate in Quetta. Police had arrested the Balochistan minister in connection with the killing of two men and a teenage girl in Balochistan’s Barkhan district a few days back.

Sardar Khetran was under the custody of crimes branch police on a 10-day physical remand. The police produced the minister before the court and the counsel for the minister pleaded before the court to send his client to the district jail Quetta.

The judicial magistrate however directed the police to produce Khetran before the court on March 9 in his ancestral town of Barkhan with regard to the triple murder case.

Khan Muhammad Marri, a local tribesman had lodged an FIR against the minister, accusing him of murdering his two sons and making the remaining family members including his wife hostage.

The charges were vehemently denied by the minister.

Sardar Khetran accused his son Sardarzada Inam Khetran of conspiring against him to become the next chief of the Khetran tribe.

The Marri Itehad Pakistan staged a protest demonstration for three days demanding FIR against the minister and to ensure the safe recovery of Marri’s other family members including his remaining four sons, a daughter, and wife.

Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo had also taken notice of the brutal murder and formed a joint interrogation team (JIT) to probe the incident.

Senior police officers are part of the JIT probing the killings and the act of making Marri’s family hostage.

Khan Muhammad Marri was in the past Sardar Khetran’s close aide and personal bodyguard but later both developed differences.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2023.