LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Monday acquitted two accused in the murder of Chaudhry Zulfikar, the lead Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) prosecutor in the Benazir Bhutto murder case, due to a “lack of evidence”.
During the hearing, ATC Judge Shariq Arjumand read out the short order, declaring Hammad and Adnan Adil acquitted.
On the morning of May 3, 2013, Zulfikar, accompanied by an armed guard, was driving himself to court for a hearing of the Benazir Bhutto murder case, when two assassins on a motorcycle released fire on the car. They pumped 10 bullets into Zulfikar’s chest and also injured the guard who was shot in the back.
Chaudhry Zulfikar Ali was scheduled to submit a challan in an anti-terrorism court against former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf in connection with the murder case.
Zulfiqar lost control of the steering and the car skidded on an adjacent green belt, running over a female pedestrian before hitting a tree. As he lay dying at the steering wheel, the security guard Farman Ali managed to return fire with an AK-47.
He managed to kill one of the fleeing assassins (Haris) and shot the other. A third assassin (Tanveer) who was trailing the car was able to recover Haris’s body and drive his other accomplice from the crime scene.
Tanveer drove them to a safe house owned by brothers Adnan and Hammad in Bara Kahu, on the periphery of Islamabad.
Haris was buried in the backyard of the house, while Abdullah was taken to a hospital.
Police were later able to arrest the two brothers from the safe house and recover Haris’s decomposing body from a shallow grave.
After an investigation, the brothers Adnan and Hammad were found to have allegedly been facilitators of several attacks including the assassination of Christian Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti and a suicide attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad.
The police arrested Adnan and Hammad from Bara Kahu in September 2013. They were indicted in Dec 2013 along with Abdullah, who went missing in 2015 after seeking a bail on medical grounds.