The Supreme Court (SC) directed the Sindh IGP to ensure presence of the Malir SSP and two former SHOs accused of labelling a class 10 student as ‘terrorist’ and killing him in a ‘fake’ encounter last year.
A two-member bench, comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Justice Maqbool Baqar, has called these officers to be present at SC’s Karachi Registry on Thursday. Last month, former Sacchal SHO Ismail Lashari had challenged the order of the Sindh High Court (SHC), which had ordered the registration of an FIR against him regarding the killing of 17-year-old Anisur Rehman Soomro.
The SHC had passed this order on the petition of the victim’s father, Anwar Ali Soomro. Anis, a class 10 student, was arrested along with his two friends by the Sacchal police near Safoora Goth in Gulistan-e-Jauhar on June 12, 2014. His father alleged that he repeatedly visited the police station to question their arrest. However, SHO Lashari allegedly demanded Rs 500,000 for Anis’s release and later killed him in a ‘fake’ encounter due to non-payment of the bribe.
During the last hearing on February 15, the victim’s family alleged that SHO Lashari and the then Sohrab Goth SHO, Shoaib Siddiqui, were influencing the investigation process and harassing them to withdraw the case. On February 15, the judges ordered the Karachi city police chief to place the two officers under suspension and withdraw field postings from them in order to make sure that they do not influence the investigation process.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, the two officials appeared before the court in uniform. Replying to a query, the officials said they had obtained a stay order from the SHC against their suspension. Visibly irked, the judges questioned that how they could get orders from the SHC against the SC’s clear directives for their suspension.
Taking exception of the officials’ conduct, the apex court bench issued notices to the IGP to produce Malir SSP Rao Anwar and two sub-inspectors, Lashari and Shoaib, on Thursday [today] with a report on the progress in investigation against their subordinates.