Co-accused seeks bail in Hamza murder case

Says he has been arrested although he had no role in the 17-year-old’s murder.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court has directed the deputy prosecutor general to file comments on the bail plea of the co-accused in the Hamza Ahmed murder case.

Muhammad Idrees, who is currently detained at the Karachi central prison, had moved an application seeking release on bail. Hamza, a 17-year-old student, was allegedly gunned down by the security guard of another teenager, Shoaib Naveed, after they got into a heated argument outside a restaurant in the Defense Housing Authority on April 27.

Idrees said that the police arrested him in the murder case despite the fact he had had no role in the offence.

His lawyer said that the only involvement of the applicant in the murder case was that the security guard Amal Rehman, who is the prime suspect, kept the murder weapon at Idrees’ residence. Afterwards, Idrees dropped Amal at the shrine of Khawaja Bukharion on his request, making him the last person to see Amal before he was declared an absconder.

He asked that the court declare Idrees had no role in the commission of the crime and be released from the jail after giving surety that he would not leave the city till the case was decided. The deputy prosecutor general, Khadim Hussain, requested for time to file comments.

Victim’s family

Meanwhile, advocate Abdul Majeed Khan filed power of attorney to represent the complainant, Hamza’s father Talib Sohail, during hearing of this bail application.

Earlier, the victim’s family had expressed distrust over the investigation into the murder, and requested the high court to order re-investigation through a team of ‘honest’ police officers. The family’s petition for re-investigation has been fixed for Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2013.