Mustafa murder case

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It took no less than 39 days for the police to discover that a young man of 23, who went missing from DHA in Karachi on January 6, had been murdered within days. Had the police not been negligent and sprang into action swiftly, Mustafa Amir might have been saved, says the grieving mother of the murdered boy, further alleging that the police were least bothered about conducting any investigation. Such was the level of congnisance that the so-called investigating officer in the case was not even aware of a charred body having been found in a torched car in Hub town of Balochistan on January 12 i.e. six days after Mustafa went missing.

It was only after a call for ransom had been received from an international number after two weeks of the disappearance – perhaps to mislead the police into investigating on the lines of kidnapping for ransom – that the case was transferred to CIA, and showed some progress. It still took till February 8 for the police to conduct a raid on the DHA residence of Armaghan, the prime suspect and a friend of the murdered boy. Armaghan resisted arrest by opening fire on the raiding police party, injuring a DSP and a constable, but was finally taken into custody. Even the resistance offered by the suspect was good enough for the court to grant the police more than a day's remand – something that compels one into believing that police were not the only one that stood compromised. Subsequently, the police arrested a friend of Armaghan who disclosed that Mustafa had been murdered and his body, along with his car, had been torched in Hub.

While the high-ups have suspended the concerned SHO and two other police officers and recommended action against them, it is of no use to the bereaved family. All that the police and courts should do is ensure that Armaghan does not become another Shahrukh Jatoi, who got a clean chit in a similar 2012 murder case in Karachi from none other than the country's top court.