Direction repeated: SHC asks DHA to provide video footage to aid investigation

Man claims the police gunned down his son in a ‘fake encounter’ at the park.

KARACHI: The high court repeated on Monday its direction to the Defense Housing Authority (DHA) to provide footage recorded by CCTVs at the Captain Farhan Shaheed Park, where the police had killed two alleged robbers in ‘encounter’.

The direction came during the hearing of a petition filed by a police sub-inspector, Ijaz Ahmed, whose son, along with a friend, was killed near the Village Restaurant on April 24. SI Ijaz, who is performing security duties at the high court, had made an application to Chief Justice Mushir Alam, requesting him to order police high-ups start an inquiry into the incident.

The petitioner’s lawyer, Khursheed Ahmed, alleged that DHA security staff had caught the petitioner’s son, who himself was a police constable, and his friend. “Both were handed over to the police, who shot them dead and later claimed they were robbers,” the lawyer claimed.



He made a plea to the court to order police chief to hold a transparent inquiry into the alleged encounter and punish law enforcers for the ‘extrajudicial double murder’.

In the last hearing, the DHA officials were ordered to provide CCTV footage of the cameras installed at the park, but they didn’t provide any. Instead, DHA told the court that its CCTV cameras installed in the area where incident took place didn’t have night vision.

Taking up the case on Monday, the bench again directed DHA to provide CCTV footage to help investigators. The hearing was then adjourned.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2013.