- Accused SSP refuses appearance before Inquiry Committee
The publicity-relishing Rao Anwar, SSP Malir for ages, now suspended and facing charges for murdering 27 year-old Karachi resident Naqeebullah Mehsud and three others in a January 12 fake encounter, seems to have vanished in thin air after the three-member probe committee termed the incident suspicious and suggested placing his name on the Exit Control List. Cases of 250 deaths in 60 staged encounters under his watch during last three years were also being reopened, and SHOs of 13 Malir district police stations transferred for transparency’s sake. Alleging committee bias, he unilaterally boycotted proceedings, pleading his media defense on telephone from unknown locations. This latter unsurprisingly consists of proclaiming his own innocence and passing the buck to two subordinates.
The Supreme Court has also taken suo moto notice, as Naqeeb, dubbed a ‘terrorist’, had no prior criminal record in Karachi or Khyber-Paktunkwa (he hailed from South Waziristan). This stark fact and other ‘wheels within wheels’ crime scene discrepancies needed validation, but ignoring police discipline, Rao Anwar surprisingly (or not) chose to absent himself, the first step towards becoming a fugitive. If he fails to appear before the IGP, Sindh or the National Commission for Human Rights, he can be arrested and FIR lodged against him by the victim’s heirs, now under tight police protection. Some claim immunity from prosecution on grounds of an arrogant, primitive hunger for power, while others consider themselves above the law, even when they are the law, based on their powerful ‘connections’. This case has ominously assumed an ethnic dimension, as Pashtuns are agitating for justice in KP, FATA and Karachi for this now almost folk figure.