KARACHI: In a 19-year-old targeted killing case, an antiterrorism court (ATC) on Thursday cleared two suspects who were allegedly connected to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) due to a lack of evidence.
The two defendants, Khawaja Muhammad Faisal and Syed Abu Irfan, were accused of killing ASI Muhammad Iqbal and Haseeb Ahmed in a premeditated attack that took place in May 2005 inside the jurisdiction of the Gulberg police station.
The prosecution was found to have failed to substantiate the charges against the accused, according to the ATC-X judge presiding over the trial, which took place in the Judicial Complex within the Karachi central prison.
Defense attorneys Abdi Zaman and Osama Ali argued throughout the trial that the prosecution had not presented the court with any witnesses or evidence against their clients.
Lack of proof results in the court clearing the couple of all accusations.
They argued that the matter had been unfairly linked to their clients.
The prosecution claims that on May 12, 2005, the accused, Shafique ur Rehman, Yameen, Asif Buddha, Irfan Sindhi, and Zakir Hussain, alias Agha Adeel, carried out a targeted attack in Federal B Area Block-5 that killed civilian Hasseeb and ASI Iqbal.
It is important to note that Shafique was already found not guilty in the current case back in 2014 due to a dearth of evidence.
Motorcycles and firearms were found in the possession of the two accused after a raid by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in 2021 resulted in their arrest.
Based on the confessional statement of one of the accused, Faisal, who told the police that he and the other two accused killed ASI Iqbal and his buddy in Federal B Area, they were charged in the case.
Leading suspect in rape-murder case placed on remand
The primary suspect in a case involving the suspected gang rape and murder of a young girl was placed under police custody on Thursday by a court magistrate.
The crime had reportedly been performed by the suspect and two accomplices.
The detective, Shama, presented the suspect to Judicial Magistrate (South) Zahid Ali and requested that he be physically detained for a period of 14 days in order to conduct more questioning.
The 12-year-old girl was sexually raped inside a travel agency next to the Cantt station by the perpetrator and two accomplices, the IO told the court, and she was later strangled to death.
The girl’s body was later abandoned in a Lucky Star area dumpsite by the accused after being placed in a gunny bag.
The IO also told the court that two more suspects needed to be taken into custody.
The suspect was placed under five days of police detention after the court heard the IO’s presentation, and the IO was instructed to provide a progress report at the following hearing.
The arrested suspect, according to the police, was a watchman at the “Bara Market” close to the Cantonment Railway Station.
The mother of the victim, the complainant, reportedly told the police that she lived close to the Cantt area train station. She added that on August 24, she had left her 12-year-old daughter at home and gone to the clinic with her two daughters.
The complainant’s 12-year-old daughter was gone when she got back, though.
The complainant went to other locations during this time to look for her, but when she was unable to locate her, she called the police. The authorities notified her that the Saddar police station was in charge of a girl’s body that had been discovered there.
The complainant learned that unidentified individuals had abducted her daughter, raped and killed her, and then disposed of her body at a landfill when she accompanied the police to identify the body.
A case was filed under the Pakistan Penal Code’s Sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape), 365-B (kidnapping, kidnapping, or forcing a woman to marry, etc.), and 34 (common intention).
