JIT holds Rao Anwar responsible for Naqeeb murder: report

• AIG Dr Aftab Pathan-led team submits its findings before the competent authority

ISLAMABAD: A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) formed under directives of the Supreme Court has held Rao Anwar Ahmed Khan, a suspended Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Karachi’s Malir area, responsible for the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud and three others in a staged ‘encounter’ in Karachi.

According to a report, the investigation team led by Additional Inspector General of Police Dr Aftab Pathan held Rao Anwar guilty of killing an innocent person in the encounter. The JIT has submitted its findings before the competent authority, a private media outlet reported.

Rao Anwar was arrested March 21 when he finally appeared before the Supreme Court after eluding law enforcement agencies for over a month. Soon after the suspended senior police officer appeared before the three-member bench hearing the suo motu case against Naqeeb’s murder, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar ordered police to arrest him.

After the hearing ended, Rao Anwar was taken away in an armoured personnel carrier and later handed over to the Sindh Police officials. At that time, the court also ordered the formation of a new five-member joint investigation team, headed by AIG Aftab Pathan, to investigate the staged encounter.

The chief justice had said that no institution, including the judiciary, would influence the investigation, which he said must be transparent. Rao Anwar had arrived at the court under tight security and was taken directly to the courtroom number one, where the hearing into Naqeeb’s murder case took place. It is not yet clear whether he had shown up to court voluntarily.

His counsel Shamim Rehman informed the bench that Anwar had now surrendered. But the chief justice remarked that Anwar had done no favours by surrendering, and it had been inappropriate of him to write letters to the CJP. “Prove your innocence before the new joint investigating team,” he told Anwar, adding that he would be considered innocent till proven guilty in the eyes of the law.

Naqeebullah Mehsud, whose name was given as Naseemullah on his national identity card, was a shop owner fond of modelling. Hailing from South Waziristan, he was among four suspects killed in an ‘encounter’ with a police team headed by Rao Anwar in the Usman Khaskheli Goth on the outskirts of the metropolis in January 2018.

Anwar had alleged that Naqeebullah was a Tehreek-i-Taliban militant, but the victim’s family had disputed the claim, saying that the 27-year-old had no links with any militant organisation. In January, an inquiry team of senior police officers investigating the extrajudicial killing had found that the Waziristan native was killed in a fake encounter which was staged by then-Malir SSP on January 13.