KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Monday was informed by the police that the relevant section of the antiterror law had been invoked against a police party in the murder case of a young man in a ‘fake encounter’, media reports have stated.
Assistant sub-inspector Tariq Khan and constables Mohammad Shaukat, Akbar Khan and Abdul Waheed have been booked for allegedly killing 27-year-old Maqsood, travelling in a rickshaw, along with injuring the rickshaw’s driver in a supposed shootout with bandits at Shahra-e-Faisal in January.
A deputy superintendent of police through a report informed a judicial magistrate (East) that Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 had been implemented in the case considering that the incident had created terror and insecurity among the public.
The DSP further said that the police high-ups had ordered a reinvestigation in the case lodged against the alleged bandits Ali Eidain and Babar Ali, who were supposedly engaged in a shootout with the police on the day of the incident.
The DSP maintained that a final investigation report would be filed after a thorough examination of evidence, facts and circumstances of both the cases.
The police had earlier filed on March 24 an interim charge before the magistrate, in which ASI Tariq was named as the main suspect for killing Maqsood and wounding the rickshaw driver, while policemen Akbar and Waheed were charged for not adopting a proper strategy to arrest the bandits, along with concealing the facts of the case.
The report further stated that ASI Tariq and Akbar were armed and did not adopt a proper strategy to apprehend the bandits which resulted in the innocent death.
Constable Shaukat was not named in the charge sheet due to lack of evidence.
However, the report clarified that Babar and Eidain were professional criminals and had a history of such activities in Punjab.
Initially, the police had listed the bandits behind the victim’s death. However, a new FIR was registered on the complaint of Maqsood’s father on a court order in which he maintained that the police were involved in the killing of his son. Hence, a reinvestigation into the case was ordered.
