The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday disposed of the plea seeking transfer of Sarfaraz Shah extrajudicial killing case from anti-terrorism court (ATC) to a sessions court.
The ATC had dismissed a similar plea of transferring the case while declaring that this case of murdering an unarmed youth by the law enforcement personnel was of terrorism. The applicants had challenged the ATC judgment of dismissing their prior plea in the SHC, submitting that the ATC had no jurisdiction to try the case as the fact and circumstances of the case had no nexus with the act of terrorism as defined under Section 6 of the ATA.
Dismissing the application filed on behalf of the accused Rangers, the SHC division bench, comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Muhammad Tasnim, also ordered the defence counsel to raise his arguments before the trial court (ATC) after completion of arguments from both sides.
Earlier, Sindh Prosecutor General Shahdat Awan appeared before the court and argued that the case is under trial at the ATC on the directive of the Apex Court under Article (7) of Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. He added that the case in ATC is about to complete and the jurisdiction of court cannot be decided at this stage.
However, petitioners’ counsel Advocate Mehmood Alam Rizvi opposed Awan’s arguments saying that the Supreme Court’s directive has been misinterpreted and the case is under trial at an ATC instead of a regular court.
The application was filed by Rangers Sub-Inspector Bahaur Rehman, Lance Naik Liaquat Ali, and constables Mohammad Tariq, Minthar Ali, Shahid Zafar and Mohammad Afzal and a private contractor, Afsar Khan, who are accused of killing 22-year-old Shah at the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Park in Clifton on June 8.
The petitioners’ counsels had submitted that the act of individual law enforcement personnel could not be termed as act of terrorism, as the video footage of the incident shows that the Rangers’ personnel had no intention of killing Shah. They added that the law enforcement personnel cannot be treated as terrorists.
The Rangers’ personnel and a private contractor were arrested and cases launched against them under ATA after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the ‘alleged encounter’.
