KARACHI: A district court on Monday directed the station house officer of the Manghopir police station to register a case against officials of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) over killing of a political activist in an alleged ‘fake’ encounter.

Three police officials — Inspector Shahzad Ali Khan, Sub-Inspector Waqas Anwar, in-charge of ACLC zone West SHO Chaudhry Mohammad Saleem — along with some other persons have been blamed for abducting Asadullah Umrani and later killing him in a fake encounter.

The district and sessions judge (West) pronounced the order, which was reserved earlier after hearing arguments from both sides.

The judge directed the SHO of Manghopir police station to record statement of the applicant and proceed with the matter in accordance with law.

The court disposed of an application moved by applicant Ali Akbar under Section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code seeking direction for the Manghopir SHO to record his statement for registration of a criminal case against three police officials and some others for allegedly kidnapping and killing his brother Asadullah Umrani in “staged encounter” on Oct 15.

In the application, it was submitted that Inspector Shahzad Ali Khan, Sub-Inspector Waqas Anwar, in-charge of ACLC zone West SHO Chaudhry Mohammad Saleem and other persons came in plainclothes in different vehicles along with one police mobile van and abducted Umrani. Later, the applicant came to know that his brother was killed in an alleged encounter.

The applicant’s counsel, Shahid Hussain Soomro, argued that there were several witnesses to the alleged kidnapping of the victim, whose vehicle (registration number BLV-520) was still parked at the PS Manghopir. The deceased was a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party-Shaheed Bhutto.

It was further claimed in the application that there were torture marks visible on the body of the deceased, who was father of three.

The counsel produced photographs of the victim and argued that the nature of the injuries did not support the police’s claim of encounter, adding that even a post-mortem examination was conducted without adopting proper procedure.

Advocate Soomro argued that this was a case similar to Naqeebullah Mehsud and Intizar Ahmed murder cases.

He further argued that registering a case of the incident was a constitutional right of the applicant as investigation could prove whether or not the allegations of abduction and killing were correct.

He also produced pictures of the victim’s car which had visible bullet marks in the front and back windscreens and pointed out that on the contrary the victim had received bullets in his abdomen from left side and the same had pierced through the right side.

Mr Soomro submitted that the police officials concerned were not paying heed to the request of his client for registration of a case against the police officials and requested to direct the SHO of PS Manghopir to record statement of the victim’s brother and register a case in accordance with the law.

On the other hand, the defence counsel for the police officials argued that all the three persons, who were killed in a genuine encounter, had a number of criminal cases registered against them.

He mentioned that four cases were registered against co-accused Shahzado and Ashok Kumar, alias Doctor, while three to four cases were registered against Asadullah.

However, the counsel informed that after hearing the news regarding the encounter the SSP concerned had already constituted a committee for probing the supposed encounter.

Therefore, he pleaded not to issue any direction for registration of the case against the police officials and dismiss the present application.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2018

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