KARACHI:
Jail authorities approached an anti-terrorism court on Saturday with a request to issue a fresh black warrant for the execution of Saulat Mirza.
An ATC had condemned Saulat Ali Khan, better known as Saulat Mirza, a worker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, to death in 1999 for murdering the managing director of the formerly Karachi Electric Supply Company, Shahid Hamid, his driver and guard in 1997 in Karachi’s Defence Society.
The superintendent of Mach prison informed the trial court through a letter that implementation of the previous black warrant, issued on March 11 for hanging the convict on March 19, had been deferred by the President for three days a few hours before the scheduled execution because of his bad health.
The letter said since the jail authorities had not received any further stay order, a fresh black warrant should be issued for the execution. The court may re-issue a death warrant on March 24.
The President had deferred the execution before Mirza was to be hanged on Thursday morning after TV news channels aired a video of the convict in which he made sensational allegations that some leaders of his party were involved in targeted killings and other crimes.
The death row prisoner had been shifted from Karachi to Mach prison in Balochistan in April last year along with some other high-profile inmates.
Judge Mohammad Javed Alam of Karachi ATC-V had sentenced him to death in May 1999. The Sindh High Court dismissed his appeal in 2000 and the Supreme Court turned down a plea against the capital punishment in 2001. A review petition was rejected by the apex court in 2004. Over a decade-old mercy petition of the convict was recently turned down by the President.
According to the prosecution, Shahid Hamid, his driver Ashraf Brohi and guard Khan Akbar were gunned down when the then KESC chief left his house in DHA in his car on July 5, 1997. The then SHO of Gulbahar, Mohammad Aslam Khan, had arrested the accused in December 1998 from Karachi airport after his arrival from Bangkok on a fake passport.
Police said the offence had been carried out to avenge the removal by Shahid Hamid of MQM supporters working in the KESC. The conviction was mainly based on the evidence of three eyewitnesses – the slain KESC chief’s wife Shahnaz Hamid, son Umar Hamid and a chance witness Mirza Tariq Javed.
A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 on the complaint of the KESC chief’s widow at Defence police station. Gulbahar police also booked the accused in a connected case under Section 13-E of the Arms Ordinance since he had led a police team for the recovery of the crime weapon, a Kalashnikov, which was found in a unit office of the party in Nazimabad.
Police claimed the accused had confessed during investigation that he and his two accomplices were involved in many murder cases, including the case in question. However, the verdict was silent about the accomplices.
