IO told to file charge sheet against seven accused in Naqeebullah murder case

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) has directed the investigation officer (IO) to file a supplementary charge-sheet against seven accused in Naqeebullah Mehsud murder case.

Former SHO of Shah Latif Town Amanullah Marwat, along with former Sohrab Goth SHO Shoaib Shaikh, alias Shoaib Shooter, and the former’s five subordinates — Gada Hussain, Syed Sadaqat Hussain, Mohsin Abbas, Raja Shamim Mukhtar and Riaz Ahmed — had surrendered to the court in May this year to stand trial after absconding for more than five years.

They turned up around five months after the court exonerated former Malir senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rao Anwar and 17 others from the charges of the extrajudicial killings of the young Naqeebullah, an aspiring fashion model hailing from South Waziristan, and three others in a staged encounter at an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of the port city in January 2018.

As the case came up for hearing before the in-charge ATC-XVI judge, Marwat, Gada, Sadaqat, Abbas, Mukhtar and Ahmed were produced from the jail while Shoaib turned up on bail. The IO, DPS Balaghat, stated that he had submitted the supplementary charge-sheet to the prosecutor general’s office for scrutiny and sought time to file it in the court. Subsequently, the judge directed the IO to furnish the charge sheet on the next hearing on October 7.