An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Monday acquitted Minhaj Qazi, former security in-charge of Nine Zero, the former MQM headquarters, and Mahboob Ghafran in the high-profile 1997 murder case of former Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) managing director Shahid Hamid.
The verdict was announced at the Anti-Terrorism Complex inside Karachi Central Jail. The court extended the benefit of the doubt to both accused, declaring them not guilty due to insufficient evidence.
Defence counsel Mushtaq Ahmed contended that the FIR only mentioned the presence of convicted killer Saulat Mirza in the car used in the attack. He argued that Minhaj Qazi was not initially linked to the crime and was implicated much later without substantive grounds.
He further pointed out that Shahid Hamid's widow, Shahnaz Hamid, altered her statement nearly a month after Qazi's arrest in 2016. In her revised account submitted to the Supreme Court, she said she had not witnessed the murder, undermining earlier claims that had formed part of the prosecution's case.
According to the prosecution, Shahid Hamid was gunned down in 1997 in a targeted attack. Saulat Mirza, a former MQM activist, was convicted in 1999 and executed in 2015. Police later arrested Qazi and Ghafran in 2016 and charged them with involvement in the killing. The Defence police registered the case against all three.
After years of legal proceedings, the court found the prosecution's evidence against Qazi and Ghafran to be inconclusive, leading to their acquittal.
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