The application in Sindh High Court (SHC) for transferring the Sarfaraz Shah murder case from an anti-terrorism court (ATC) to a sessions court was on Monday referred to the SHC Chief Justice for constituting a special division bench for hearing the plea, filed on behalf of the Pakistan Rangers’ personnel facing charges of an extrajudicial killing.
The SHC division bench comprising Justice Athar Saeed and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar started the proceeding on the application but Sindh Prosecutor General Shahadat Awan raised a legal point that as an administrative judge of ATCs, Justice Athar Saeed could not hear the application.
The same application has been already rejected by the trial court. On July 4, the ATC had dismissed the plea declaring that this was a case of terrorism.
The plea has been filed on behalf of Rangers Sub-Inspector Bahur Rehman, Lance Naik Liaquat Ali, constables Mohammad Tariq, Minthar Ali, Shahid Zafar, Mohammad Afzal and private contractor Afsar Khan, who are all under trial for involvement in killing 22-year-old Sarfaraz Shah at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Park on June 8.
The applicants had challenged the ATC’s judgment of dismissing their prior plea to transfer the case from the special court to a regular court. They submitted that the ATC has no jurisdiction to try the case as the fact and circumstances of the case had no nexus with acts of terrorism, as defined under Section 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Law.
The counsels of the applicants submitted that the act of individual law enforcement personnel could not be termed as terrorism, as the video footage also shows that they had no intention of killing the youth and that the law enforcement personnel could not be treated as terrorists.
