An anti-terrorism court on Thursday postponed the indictment of six paramilitary soldiers accused over the shock killing of an unarmed youth at a public park this month, prosecutors said.
It was the second time this week that the indictment had been delayed to allow the soldiers more time to engage lawyers.
Members of Pakistan’s Rangers paramilitary force shot dead Sarfaraz Shah, 22, in Karachi on June 8 after he was accused of robbery, but his family has demanded justice, insisting he was an innocent student. The daylight murder was filmed live by a local cameraman and subsequently broadcast round the clock on national television, the brutality of trained security officers in uniform shocking the country.
The six soldiers and a civilian, who accused Shah of robbery, were produced before judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso on Thursday, public prosecutor Mohammad Khan Buriro told reporters.
“The court gave the accused a last chance” to hire lawyers and adjourned the proceedings until Friday, he said. If they do not find lawyers, the court will assign them legal aid, he quoted the judge as telling the accused. The indictment was previously adjourned on Wednesday for the same reason.
Faced with a media tirade over the killing, the government took the rare step of removing the provincial chiefs of police and Rangers in Karachi. The widely aired footage of the killing showed a clean-shaven un-armed Shah, wearing black trousers and a navy shirt, pleading for his life before he was shot twice.
He then begged for help while the soldiers appeared to do nothing but watch him fall slowly and lapse into unconsciousness.
Despite no evidence in the video that Shah had a weapon, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, whose ministry is responsible for the Rangers, claimed Thursday that he had been carrying an unlicenced weapon.
Faced with the surprise announcement, a reporter again asked Malik whether a weapon had been recovered from Shah, to which he replied: “Yes, it is confirmed that a weapon was recovered from his possession”.
The killings last month by security forces of five unarmed Chechens, one of them a pregnant woman, in the city of Quetta are also under investigation.
