In court: ATC remands suspect involved in policeman’s killing

SHO Ejaz Ali Khawaja was shot dead by gunmen riding a motorcycle on main Korangi Road on April 16

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) remanded on Saturday a suspect in police custody in the murder case of a police officer, Ejaz Ali Khawaja.

The police brought the suspect, identified as Waseem alias Chotta, to ATC-III, and submitted that he was arrested on October 16 for his involvement in the murder of Preedy police station house officer Khawaja.

SHO Khawaja was killed in a drive-by shooting in April this year when gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on his metallic silver Toyota Corolla on main Korangi Road. The deceased police officer was attacked before noon on April 16, minutes after he left his residence in Defence Housing Authority for his office at the Preedy police station in Saddar.

He was shot multiple times and his car bore several bullet holes. He sustained bullet wounds in the upper torso as, according to the investigators, the shots reached him piercing through the windscreen of his car.

Khawaja was the third SHO of the Preedy police station to be killed within three years. Earlier, inspectors Ghazanfar Kazmi and Agha Asadullah, holding the same office, met the same fate in separate incidents of firing.

The killing of SHO Khawaja was deemed a sectarian attack. Shortly after the incident, senior police officials of the city had pointed towards the possibility of sectarian motive behind the killing as the deceased belong to the Shia sect. However, they maintained that other angles could not be ruled out.

On Saturday, the investigator told the court that the suspect, during initial interrogation, identified his absconding accomplices as Javed Sindhi, Adnan, Safdar alias Don and others.

He requested the ATC judge to allow him to keep the suspect in custody as further interrogation was required. Approving his plea, the judge handed him the custody of the suspect on physical remand till October 25 and sought a report regarding the progress in the investigations on the next date of hearing.

The case was registered under sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act at Defence police station.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2015.