Justice served? Target killer charged in decade-old case

ATC accepts a charge sheet against K2 for killing a policeman in 2005.

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) accepted on Monday a charge sheet against alleged target killer Ubaid Khursheed in a decade-old policeman killing case, which was earlier shelved as a blind murder.

Khursheed, notoriously known as K2 after the alias of his elder brother Arshad who was killed in 1996, has been facing a number of murder charges, including those of high-ranking police officials, since his arrest in the March 11 paramilitary raid at Muttahida Qaumi Movement headquarters.

According to the charge sheet, Khursheed and his accomplices, who escaped capture, rode on two motorcycles and intercepted ASI Shahbaz Khan, 35, at the Water Pump signal as he left his home to buy some groceries on night of September 16, 2005. The suspects forced the police officer into a van after torturing him and drove him to a nearby ground in the Yasinabad area. Khan was beaten and then shot dead, after which, the suspects dumped his body there.

The charge sheet failed, however, to name the absconding suspects and did not even mention that how many there were.

The murder case, registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act on the complaint of the deceased's elder brother, who worked at the city's power utility company, remained on the back burner until April 1 of this year, when, according to investigators, Khursheed confessed his involvement in the killing.

The following week the suspect was taken to a Central district civil court where two witnesses identified him. The complainant had stated in the FIR that his brother was killed for taking part in the 1992 Karachi operation and that he was posted at the Liaquatabad police station during that time.

The ATC-II, after examining the evidence, has accepted the charge-sheet.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2015.