A local court in Balochistan’s Barkhan district on Friday granted bail to Minister for Communication and Works (C&W) Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran in the triple murder case.
The grisly murders and subsequent discovery of corpses from a well of three people — a woman and two young men — in Rakhni which is a town and union council of Barkhan District triggered protests and highlighted the inhumanity of illegal prisons. The victims were said to be captives since 2019 in an illegal prison allegedly run by Khetran, a prominent leader of the government aligned-Balochistan Awami Party.
Session Judge Malik Sujhao Din granted bail to the minister in a case pertaining to triple murders. The brutal triple murder of two men and one woman resulted in an outcry on social media, forcing the government to take notice of it and registered an FIR against the minister.
“There is no evidence of the minister’s involvement in the triple murder case in Barkhan,” Manzoor Rehman, the lawyer of Khetran told reporters after getting the bail order.
Speaking to the media after the hearing, Khetran’s lawyer Advocate Manzoor Rehmani said no charges were proved against his client.
In February, police arrested the Balochistan minister after the bodies of three youths, two men and a woman, were discovered in a well in the Haji Kot area of Barkhan district of Balochistan.
The victims belonged to the family of local tribesman Khan Muhammad Marri, who had accused Khetran of the murders.
When the bullet-riddled bodies of the woman and two men were found in a well near the minister’s residence in the Barkhan area, the police initially identified them as Granaz, wife of Khan Muhammad Marri, and her two sons.
At the time, Marri said the corpses were of his wife and sons, alleging that they were held in Khetran’s private jail. He added that more of his children, including a daughter, were captives.
Subsequently, Granaz was recovered along with her 17-year-old daughter Farzana and son. Two other sons were recovered from Kohlu. The woman is still unidentified.
The Barkhan triple murder saga saw dramatic twists after police arrested the provincial minister.
Later a police surgeon who conducted a medical check-up of Granaz and her five children had said that evidence showed the woman’s teenage daughter was not only tortured but was also sexually abused.
The surgeon, Dr Ayesha Faiz of Civil Hospital Quetta, had said torture marks had been found on the body of the 17-year-old girl and she was also burnt with a cigarette.
“The evidence of sexual abuse with the girl was also found in the examination,” she had said, adding that her mother, Granaz, was also physically tortured as marks were found on her body.
Dr Faiz disclosed that the sons of Marri had also complained that they were sexually abused during confinement, but no evidence was found of sexual abuse with the boys in the recent past.
Following the recovery of the bodies, the Marri Alliance staged a three-day protest in the red zone of the provincial capital against the recovery of the bodies and accused the minister Khtran of killing the victims.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 11th, 2023.
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