Taxi driver's death: Physical remand of accused Rangers extended till July 25

Soldiers were earlier remanded till July 22, it has now been extended for further investigation.

KARACHI: The Supreme Court of Pakistan awarded the physical remand of the Rangers officials who gunned down taxi driver Mureed Ali till July 25, Express News reported on Monday.

Four Rangers officials are in police custody in connection with the extra-judicial case. Ghulam Rasool, is the main accused in the incident.

On July 18, the officials were remanded in to police custody till July 22, however it has now been extended for further investigation.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on July 20 directed police officials to submit a challan of the case within a week.

Rangers personnel opened fire on Mureed on July 16 after he failed to stop at their signal. The driver was killed on the spot, in front of his son who he had reportedly been driving to hospital.

In 2011, the paramilitary force came under severe criticism over the conduct of its personnel when local TV channels aired footage of Rangers personnel shooting Sarfaraz Shah, an unarmed civilian, at pointblank range in a public park in Karachi. Shah eventually succumbed to his injuries.

A local court subsequently found one paramilitary soldier guilty of murder and sentenced him to death, and handed life terms to five other soldiers and a civilian for their involvement in Shah’s killing. The case marked the first time that a civilian court in Pakistan sentenced to death a serving member of the paramilitary force.