Murder of youth: Police get eight-day remand of former minister’s son

Counsel for accused wants trial in district courts rather than ATC

LAHORE: The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Friday handed over five accused, including the son of a former state minister for foreign affairs Siddique Kanju to South Cantt police on eight days physical remand for allegedly killing a youth and badly injuring another.

South Cantt police produced Mustafa Kanju, son of the former state minister, and his guards Ikram Ullah, Asif, Saad and Sadiq before the ATC, seeking ten days physical remand to investigate the matter as well as to recover the weapons used in the killing.

The ATC judge pointedly asked Kanju whether he had killed Zain to which the accused replied in the negative, saying the youth died in the crossfire.

He requested the court to rightfully ascertain who had in fact killed Zain, reiterating that he had not and that he is being implicated falsely by his rivals in connivance with local police. The judge said that justice will be dispensed on merit and in accordance with law.

Kanju’s counsel Barrister Nawazish submitted that his client was innocent and had been implicated in a fake case merely to humiliate and blackmail him, whereas he had nothing to do with the murder.

He stated that Zain was killed in the cross-firing but police put all the blame on his client Mustafa Kanju. He also prayed the court to remove section 7ATA from the registered FIR as the case does not fall within the ambit of 7ATA. The trial, he pleaded, should rightfully proceed in district courts rather than ATC.

The facts on record are that on April 1 (Wednesday) Mustafa Kanju was driving his BMW car LWK-77. Upon reaching Street-4 of Cavalry Ground his car collided with another. Fiery arguments were exchanged between the passengers of the vehicles and Kanju, who was allegedly intoxicated at the time, opened indiscriminate fire from a weapon as a result of which Zain, a passerby and student of class nine, was killed while another youth Husnain was injured. The latter is stated to be in critical condition.

The FIR was registered by one Muhammad Sohail Afzal, uncle of the deceased Zain at police station South Cantt against accused Kanju, Saadullah, Saadat Ameen, Asif Zubair, Shehzad Iqbal, Sikandar Azam, Asif Rehman and Ikram Ullah under sections 302,324,148,149 of PPC and 7ATA.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2015.