Police jump the gun, register murder case two months before killing

KARACHI:

In a case that perhaps comes along once in a lifetime, a Malir judge granted bail to a man accused of killing a taxi driver two months before the death took place.

The 2nd additional district and sessions court of Malir set bail at Rs25,000 on Thursday, saying that the request was granted as the timings did not match up.

Mohammad Saleem was booked for the murder of 39-year-old taxi driver Naimatullah Khan on the Super Highway near Hyderabad. According to the FIR, the incident took place at 11:30pm on August 15 but the case was filed two months earlier - at 5:15pm on June 15!

Muhammad Akhtar Jamal, Saleem’s lawyer, claimed that the police was trying to frame his client.

He said that apart from the mistake in the FIR, the police did not submit a challan, which was a violation of section 103 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

“The challan should have been submitted in court by the police within 14 days of the arrest,” he said. “But in this case, the police did not do that.” He added that Saleem was just another man arrested by the police on a tip-off from an informer.

However, Gadap police claim that the confusion was caused by torn carbon paper.

The additional SHO of the Gadap city police station, Noor Ahmed Sheikh said that the taxi driver was killed in a mugging and Saleem was one of the main suspects.

SI Ghulam Channa, who registered the complaint, said that it was an honest mistake and he had registered a challan with corrections.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2012.