Damanged residential apartments in Abbas Town. PHOTO: RASHID AJMERI/EXPRESS/FILE
“A judge has been robbed and Mullahs are the ones who did it. Come with us to the police station.” This was all that was told to a bearded AK*, who was holding his six-month-old son at his shop near Cantt Station, by a policeman on Monday morning.
“I handed over my son to the nearest shopkeeper,” said AK. A scrap dealer by profession, AK had no idea that he was among the group of men who were being taken to court for the identification parade in the Abbas Town blast case.
The police were told to bring in men for identification by the eyewitnesses and having a beard, AK qualified as a dummy - a term used for the people who make up the group assembled for identification of a suspect.
“The Frere police brought 11 people, all with beards, from our market. We were not given time to even close our shops,” AK told The Express Tribune. “My three-year-old daughter is a cancer patient and my wife was with her in hospital. My mobile phone was seized at 9:30am and now it’s 5pm - I had no way of contacting my family.”
He said that the men were brought in a Suzuki and many of them were not even aware of the real purpose. “I didn’t have breakfast and now I have a severe headache. Even prisoners get a chance to smoke and eat on court’s premises, but we haven’t been given anything to eat since morning. They hardly gave us time for offering our prayers.”
Some of the men presented as dummies wore Sindhi caps, a few had beard, and others had shawls draped over their shoulders or wore pants - all belonged to different ethnicities.
Many of the men gathered for the parade appeared to be labourers. As soon as they came out of the court, they looked for the exit in a hurry to leave the premises.
Since only nine people were taken into the court room in one go, the process became a day-long procedure for many of the men gathered for the parade.
“If they will keep bringing men who earn on daily basis, how will the system run and how will we feed our families?” asked painter NA* angrily. “They had asked us to come in for a couple of minutes in the morning and now it’s 5pm,” he said. “We still have to collect our CNIC and mobile phones from the police station.”
A resident of Orangi Town, ZU* came to meet an acquaintance at a market near Cantt Station, but was roped in to become a dummy since he had a beard.
“I only came to submit my application in a case but the policemen brought me for the parade. I’m bearing this because its matter of someone’s life - but the method used is all wrong,” said another man who was taken for identification.
“People are afraid to be a part of the identification parade, so we have to convince them,” said a policeman. “Sometimes we call our friends and they come to our rescue.”
He added that gathering the dummies is the investigating officer’s responsibility. “But I was asked to help out today and so, I brought people only of Pakhtoon ethnicity.”
Witnesses identify six suspects
Three witnesses identified six suspects involved in the Abbas Town blast in a lower court.
The Crime Investigation Department presented six suspects of the case for the identification parade before the 4th judicial magistrate, Malir, Naveed Asghar Shaikh on Monday and Tuesday.
On Tuesday, two witnesses identified Khair Muhammad and Shafiq, who were recognised by the witness on Monday, but they failed to recognise the other two, Inamullah and Ishaq, who were also named as suspects. Additionally, the witnesses identified Irfan and Alam Shah as suspects on Tuesday.
The suspects were brought amid tight security in two APCs in the courts around 2:30pm for the identification parade which ended around 5pm on both days.
*Names changed to protect privacy of the individuals
Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2013.
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