‘Kh-e-Shamsheer accident case mishandled’

The accused was released on Rs1.5 million bail, families claim they were forced to settle.

KARACHI: The case of the Khayaban-e-Shamsheer accident in which four people were killed was mishandled by the police, the victims’ families told The Express Tribune.

The accident took place at Defence Housing Authority’s Khayaban-e-Shamsheer on August 31. The accused in the case, Saad Ali Khan, who is the son of FIA deputy director Athar Ali Khan, was released on bail by Judicial Magistrate (South) Abu Ali Jatoi on September 3.

A relative of Sabiha, a housewife who was killed in the accident, accused the police of creating legal hindrances for him and Sabiha’s family. The family was offered compensation money after Saad was released on bail, he said.

The truce took place with the mediation of Saad’s lawyer, the relative claimed. “We had no other option. The state lawyer was not interested and the police had pushed us into a corner. So we had no other option but to go for a settlement,” he went on to say, on condition of anonymity. “Money and power wins and who really cares what happened to a house-maid.”

While the families have been accusing the police and the lawyers of mishandling the case, Mushtaque Awan, Saad’s lawyer, claimed that his client was innocent and the police did not deal with the case properly. “Actually the accident had occurred because of the other car’s driver who was not even arrested,” Awan said.

He claimed that the police failed to lodge the FIR against the other driver who was driving a Honda Civic, as he belonged to an influential Baloch family. According to police officials, the other driver’s name was Munir Mengal who was also arrested with Saad but was later released. “The police levelled charges against my client only and he was held responsible for the accident, while the other boy was freed,” he said.

Lawyer Mushtaque Awan said the police had failed to even produce a charge sheet against his client. “He was innocent.” The lawyer also told The Express Tribune that the offense is a bailable one. Saad Ali Khan had also filed an application against the police in court for accusing him and releasing Mengal, Awan added.

An inquiry committee was also set up by the investigation officer in the case, he went on to say. Saad, according to him, had complained of the same thing to the higher authorities of the police who had set up the inquiry committee.

At the time of the accident, Saad was in a Toyota Corolla, bearing the licence plate number AFN 934. It collided with a Honda Civic. When the cars collided, one of them hit the footpath and the other spun, injuring the people who were waiting at the bus stop. The accident took place at 8:18 pm, in which, according to the hospital records, four people had been killed.

Officials said that the FIR against Saad Ali Khan was filed on early Wednesday morning, whereas the incident had occurred on Tuesday, August 31, evening. However, police records show that the FIR was filed two hours after the accident.

Because Saad’s family was unable to immediately present his driving license, the FIR was filed under section 320. The license was submitted on Wednesday evening.

However, Investigation Officer Aslam Kolachi, who was suspended and then transferred to the Garden Police headquarters, says that his suspension had nothing to do with the Shamsheer case. “We filed a charge sheet against the accused and dealt with the case fairly,” he said. According to him, the police had performed at their level best in the case.

The then SSP Investigations Athar Rasheed Butt, who was in charge of investigations for Clifton town in September when the inquiry of the case was going on, said he had no knowledge of the case. TPO Clifton Tariq Dharejo refused to talk to the The Express Tribune on the accident.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2010.