Prof Channar’s murder: Judicial report identifies three suspects from student wing

Family says that they are being threatened to accept decision made by elders.

HYDERABAD: As a judicial commission report narrowed the suspects for Prof. (Retd) Bashir Ahmed Channar’s murder to three people, his family said that they were being harassed by certain influential people to settle.

Channar, who was the Sindh University (SU) student affairs director, was gunned down on campus on January 2, 2012. Following his murder, the teacher and university associations held a boycott for more than a month in demand of justice. According to the report, a copy of which was obtained by the family, Bachal Narejo, Meenhal Rajjar and Hamza Ali Chandio were named as suspects. “Narejo fired the shots, Rajjar was riding the motorcycle and Chandio helped them,” states the report.

The three boys belong to the Muslim Students Federation, the student wing of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F). They are among the 18 students who were rusticated by SU in December, 2011 and were banned from entering campus.

The report, issued by the Kotri additional district and sessions judge Khalid Hussain Shahani, has identified the allocation of admission seats as the motive behind the murder. It is based on several testimonies.

Threat to settle

Meanwhile, the deceased professor’s sons held a press conference on Tuesday in Jamshoro in which they accused PML-F leaders, namely ministers Jam Madad Ali and Rafique Bhanbhan, adviser to the chief minister Imtiaz Shaikh and MNA Jadim Mangrio, of threatening them. “They want us to resolve the dispute according to the decision made by a rajoonhi (sitting of the elders),” said Aziz Channar, Niaz Channar and Daud Channar. According to that decision, the elders did not want an FIR filed and blood money to be paid.

The sons also pointed a finger at the Sindh chief minister, Qaim Ali Shah, for what they said was influencing the police and intervening in the arrests of the suspects. They appealed to the government to arrest the suspects who have been listed in the judicial inquiry report. They said that they were not a part of the movement, by the SU teachers association and SU employees welfare association, for the arrest of their father’s murderers.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2012.