Aftab Qureshi killing: PMA thinking about implicating police in a homicide case

The doctors believe that Qureshi was shot by a police bullet.

HYDERABAD: As the investigators exclude the police from the inquest of the death of Dr Aftab Ahmed Qureshi during a police raid conducted for his rescue, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) is considering implicating them in a plausible homicide case.

“We are going to hold a meeting to reach the final decision,” said PMA’s general secretary, Dr Hadi Bux Jatoi, while talking to The Express Tribune. He led a delegation which met with the Hyderabad SSP Haseeb Afzal Beg and discussed the issue with him.

Qureshi, a renowned neurosurgeon and the head of the department of neurosurgery at Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS), was kidnapped on May 12 from Karachi. He died in the crossfire when Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) and Anti Violent Crime Cell (AVCC) raided the bungalow in Hyderabad on May 30. An alleged kidnapper and an ASI were also killed in the encounter and two were also arrested.

Dr Jatoi and many other doctors believe that Dr Qureshi was shot by a bullet fired from a police weapon. Both, Qureshi and the kidnapper were shot by a heavy-calibre bullet while the ASI was shot by a small-calibre bullet.

The Hyderabad police say that Karachi’s CPLC and AVCC contingents did not inform them before raiding the bungalow and the their personnel joined the encounter later when the encounter was already under way. But he suspected that the suspected kidnapper was shot by a Hyderabad policeman.

However, the CPLC chief, Ahmed Chinoy, claims that the Hyderabad police were informed.

The PMA and had called for a judicial inquiry. On the day of the raid, Hyderabad Region DIG Sanaullah Abbassi had directed Hyderabad SSP to seek a judicial inquiry from a district and sessions judge but the police transferred the investigation to the crime branch.

The crime branch DIG, Farhat Ali Junejo, and DSP Abdullah Unar will investigate the case, with the help of an inspector and sub-inspector. However, Junejo specifically stated that CPLC and AVCC officials will not be interrogated but “they will help us in the case”.

DSP Unar said that the suspects arrested from the bungalow, Ashok Kumar Malhi and his mother Kamla Devi, were still in custody.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2012.