Mistaken suspects: Judge wants no more delays in extra-judicial Baloch killing case

The case relates to the murder of four Baloch men on Tariq Road on the New Year’s eve in 2008.

KARACHI: Lawyers defending four police officers accused of the extrajudicial murder of four men on New Year’s night in 2008 asked the Anti-Terrorism Court-III on Wednesday for more time to be able to go forward with the case.

The presiding judge remarked that the lawyers had asked for several adjournments and the lawyers needed to proceed with the case at the earliest - the witnesses include police officers and people who had to travel from Balochistan to attend the hearings.

The case deals with the murder of four Baloch men on Tariq Road: Zainuddin, Mohammad Tahir, Ubaidullah and Mohammad Ibrahim. The police had initially claimed that the Anti-Car Lifting Cell was tracing a stolen black Toyota Corolla car and when they saw a similar car approach.

They believed it was the same one and assumed that the occupants were the ones who had stolen the car. Five officers - Noor Mohammad Shah, Zahoor Khan, Mirza Zaheer, Malik Irshad and Zafar Ali - are in custody for the alleged murder and have been charged with common intent and committing murder. The court will now take up the case on October 4.

In a similar case, in 2011, the Anti-Terrorism Court I found six officers of the Pakistan Rangers and a civilian guilty of the extrajudicial killing of the 22-year-old Sarfaraz Shah at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Park in Clifton. One of the Rangers officers was sentenced to death, and the rest were imprisoned for life.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2012.