KARACHI: Madiha Kayani, a TV show host and only eyewitness to the January 13 murder of Intizar Ahmed in Defence, who in a video message on social media on Wednesday described the teenager’s murder as “planned” and claimed to have recognised one of the key characters of the deadly episode, withdrew from her claim and stood firm on her previous statement before the joint investigation team on Thursday, which also recorded the statement of the father of a former classmate of the victim, officials said.

Sources familiar with proceedings of the JIT told Dawn that they (JIT) on Thursday invited the father of the victim, Ishtiaq Ahmed, and the witness, Ms Kayani, who was accompanying expatriate student Intizar Ahmed when he was gunned down by personnel of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell on Khayaban-i-Ittehad in Defence.

The most important information to emerge from Thursday’s JIT meeting held under the chairmanship of Additional IG CTD Dr Sanaullah Abbasi was the statement of Sohail Hameed from the US recorded through videoconferencing.

Mr Hameed, who is a brother of police officer Amir Hameed, told the JIT members that his daughter Mahrukh had studied with the victim Intizar. Intizar used to frequently phone her daughter when they shifted to the US.

Sohail Hameed said he once phoned Ishtiaq Ahmed, complaining about his son’s frequent phone calls to his daughter.

Mr Hameed told the JIT members that he had held a “normal telephone talk” with Ishtiaq Ahmed, denying that he had “threatened” him. He even stated in his statement that when he ended the telephone conversation with Ishtiaq, he (Ishtiaq) invited him at his home whenever he returned to Pakistan.

The JIT also collected travel record of both the father and the girl, which revealed that Sohail Hameed had not returned to Karachi since May 2017. Similarly, his daughter, Mahrukh had not returned since Aug 2017.

The sources revealed that Ms Kayani also recorded her statement and told the JIT members that her previous statement should be considered as the “final” one. In a way, she retracted her statement given in the video, said the sources.

One senior member of the JIT on condition of anonymity told Dawn that as professional investigators they were concerned that “conflicting statements of the victim’s father may benefit the arrested accused personnel of ACLC”.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2018