The court of an additional district judge on Monday rejected an application seeking registration of a criminal case against an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) and other police officials for allegedly killing an unarmed man in Tofkiyan village.
Justice Nasrulla Khan Gandapur maintained that he found no grounds for registering a criminal case against the accused police officials; however, he asked the complainant to directly sue the ASI and others if she is not satisfied with the decision.
The application was filed by Haleema Bibi, the daughter of Malik Sharif Khan of Tofkiyan village, under section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code with the court of a session judge. She had contended that her father had a brawl with the owner of a snooker club, Zohaib Khan, who allegedly runs a gambling den at his setup. She maintained that during the scuffle, Zohaib shot at her father but the bullet hit a passerby, Abid, a driver by profession, killing him on the spot.
She said that when her father reached home, a group of Khanpur police officials, led by Additional Station House Officer Ishtiaq Khan and ASI Khurshid Khan, raided their house and shot her father dead. She insisted that her father was unarmed. She maintained that ASI Khurshid was hit in the stomach during the raid by a stray bullet fired by one of the police officials, but the police party claimed that the bullet was fired by Sharif and that they shot back at him in self-defence.
She termed her father’s death an extra-judicial killing and alleged that the ASI planned the entire raid to murder her father after being bribed to do so by Zohaib.
Following the court’s decision, Haleema said she has approached local rights bodies to help her in filing a suit against the accused policemen.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 31st, 2012.
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