Teenage rivalry: Eyewitnesses identify key accused in identification parade at hospital
Accused Salman Abro was also shot in the fight and has been at the hospital since the incident.
"The identification parade is conducted to establish the identity of the suspect and to assign the role he or she played in the offence," District public prosecutor Abdul Maroof PHOTO: ONLINE/FILE
KARACHI:
Four eyewitnesses identified on Thursday a key suspect allegedly involved in the murder of 18-year-old Sulaiman Lashari. They nominated Salman Abro as the key accused after an identification parade at the hospital where he is currently under treatment.
The judicial magistrate in district South, Mumtaz Ali Solangi, held the parade at Ziauddin Hospital in Clifton, according to the prosecution’s lawyer, Javaid Chattari.
Since Salman was on a wheelchair, wearing a patients’ gown and a cannula attached to his hand, the rest of the people in the parade were also dressed in a similar way.
Chattari narrated how the witnesses recalled the day of the incident, May 8. Salman and five police constables came to the Lashari house on Khayaban-e-Shamsheer and opened fire at the guard deployed at the main gate, injuring him. Then they entered the house and opened fire at Sulaiman while he was studying outside in the garden, said the witnesses. Salman shot Sulaiman with a Kalashnikov, one bullet hitting his neck and the second one hitting his thigh.
One of the witnesses recalled that two police constables were standing outside the house and were shouting at their colleagues to make sure no one was spared. Police constables Maqbool, Yasin Jamali, Imran Ali, Rashid and Zaheer Ahmed were serving Salman’s father, Sakrand Training Centre SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro.
Zaheer was shot when the Lashari’s guard, Ghulam Ali, opened fire. He died later, while the rest of the policemen are on remand after their identification parade on May 12.
Families’ reactions
Sulaiman’s brother, Zeeshan Lashari, said they were satisfied with the way the case was moving forward. “The FIR was registered right away and the identification parade has also been completed in the presence of a magistrate,” he pointed out. Their lawyer, Chattari, agreed their case was strengthened after the parade.
Meanwhile, SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro claimed that conducting an identification parade at the hospital was “completely illegal”. SSP Abro questioned the credibility of the parade when his son’s photos were publicised in the media.
Need for identification
The identification parade is conducted for two reasons - to establish the identity of the suspect and to assign the role he or she played in the commission of an offence, explained the district public prosecutor, Abdul Maroof.
He said that the police have to ensure that the witnesses or complainants have not seen the suspect after the incident and the suspect should be lined up along with other people, generally known as dummies - a term used for the people who make up the group assembled for the identification of a suspect.
The position of the suspect and the dummies are changed every time a witness comes in to identify him or her, he added. In this case, the witnesses rightly picked up Salman among other dummy patients.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 16th, 2014.
Four eyewitnesses identified on Thursday a key suspect allegedly involved in the murder of 18-year-old Sulaiman Lashari. They nominated Salman Abro as the key accused after an identification parade at the hospital where he is currently under treatment.
The judicial magistrate in district South, Mumtaz Ali Solangi, held the parade at Ziauddin Hospital in Clifton, according to the prosecution’s lawyer, Javaid Chattari.
Since Salman was on a wheelchair, wearing a patients’ gown and a cannula attached to his hand, the rest of the people in the parade were also dressed in a similar way.
Chattari narrated how the witnesses recalled the day of the incident, May 8. Salman and five police constables came to the Lashari house on Khayaban-e-Shamsheer and opened fire at the guard deployed at the main gate, injuring him. Then they entered the house and opened fire at Sulaiman while he was studying outside in the garden, said the witnesses. Salman shot Sulaiman with a Kalashnikov, one bullet hitting his neck and the second one hitting his thigh.
One of the witnesses recalled that two police constables were standing outside the house and were shouting at their colleagues to make sure no one was spared. Police constables Maqbool, Yasin Jamali, Imran Ali, Rashid and Zaheer Ahmed were serving Salman’s father, Sakrand Training Centre SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro.
Zaheer was shot when the Lashari’s guard, Ghulam Ali, opened fire. He died later, while the rest of the policemen are on remand after their identification parade on May 12.
Families’ reactions
Sulaiman’s brother, Zeeshan Lashari, said they were satisfied with the way the case was moving forward. “The FIR was registered right away and the identification parade has also been completed in the presence of a magistrate,” he pointed out. Their lawyer, Chattari, agreed their case was strengthened after the parade.
Meanwhile, SSP Ghulam Sarwar Abro claimed that conducting an identification parade at the hospital was “completely illegal”. SSP Abro questioned the credibility of the parade when his son’s photos were publicised in the media.
Need for identification
The identification parade is conducted for two reasons - to establish the identity of the suspect and to assign the role he or she played in the commission of an offence, explained the district public prosecutor, Abdul Maroof.
He said that the police have to ensure that the witnesses or complainants have not seen the suspect after the incident and the suspect should be lined up along with other people, generally known as dummies - a term used for the people who make up the group assembled for the identification of a suspect.
The position of the suspect and the dummies are changed every time a witness comes in to identify him or her, he added. In this case, the witnesses rightly picked up Salman among other dummy patients.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 16th, 2014.