ISLAMABAD: A sense of urgency has been created in the capital police to resolve the murder of Barrister Fahd Malik, belonging to a wealthy and influential family, without any delay, as it has become a very high profile case for different reasons.
The killing has assumed extraordinary importance. One reason is that the deceased is a nephew of former Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro. Second, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has visited Soomro’s residence to condole the death and assured the grieving family to ensure justice. Third, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has also done the same and issued at least two statements, calling for quick arrest of the murderers, and denounced police for inaction.
He has pressed for early resolution of the murder case as Fahd Malik, also a British national, is married to a sister of Imran Khan’s close friend, Zulfi Bokhari, who is based in London.
Bokhari has also launched a petition on a social media site soliciting public’s help for the arrest and punishment of killers of his brother-in-law. The plea titled “Arrest Fahd Malik's Killers” called on the Islamabad police to arrest the killers and questioned how the murderers were able to get bails while the police wasted opportunities to arrest them.
Criticism of the police apart, the force is legally restrained to detain any accused regardless of the crime he has committed when he has been on bail, temporary or permanent, given by a court of law.
Prominent Superintendent of Police (SP) Capt (retd) Ilyas has been designated as head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has now been specifically constituted to probe the killing.
“We will start our work from Tuesday,” a SIT member told The News when contacted. “We will soon resolve it after the arrest of the two accused persons nominated in the First Investigation Report (FIR).”
At the moment, the police could not arrest the main accused because they have got interim bails from different courts. “We can’t apprehend them till the time they are on bail,” the police official said.
On August 18, an additional sessions judge of Islamabad granted interim bail to one of the accused till August 27. “Under the law, the accused was required to join police investigation, but hasn’t done so,” the official said.
He said the police would arrest him if the bail was not extended or confirmed by the court. The Shalimar police will produce the record of the case before the court prior to August 27, which will become the basis of the decision on the bail plea.
On August 19, the another accused got “transit” bail from the Lahore High Court-Multan bench, which is valid till August 30. According to the law, he is required to appear before the relevant Islamabad court for bail.
The Shalimar police booked the accused after Fahd Malik was gunned down in sector F-10/3 in the wee hours of August 15. Malik Tariq Ayub, Fahd’s uncle, was also injured in the attack. The killers fled from the scene.
Police said Fahad Malik had mediated a written truce between two groups. The postmortem report of the slain said that the deceased received six bullets. A bullet that hit his right cheek and crossed from his forehead proved to be fatal, it said adding that he was shot just from a distance of four to five feet from the right side.