SHC directs all acquitted accused to engage their counsel

karachi: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday directed all the acquitted accused, including police officials, in the Murtaza Bhutto murder case to engage their counsel, saying that appeals against the acquittal of the accused would be heard starting next month.

On December 5, 2009, an additional district & sessions judge had acquitted former South SSP Wajid Ali Durrani, the then DIG Shoaib Suddle, former Intelligence Bureau director Masood Sharif, the then Saddar ASP Shahid Hayat, the then Clifton ASP Rai Mohammad Tahir and other police officials of murdering Bhutto and his companions in an alleged shoot-out.

In a previous hearing an SHC division bench headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto had said that respondents Durrani, Tahir, Zulfiqar Ahmed, Ghulam Mustafa, Ahmed Khan, Raja Hameed, Gulzar Khan, Zafar Iqbal, Faisal Hafeez, Abdul Basit and Zakir Mehmood were absent without intimation. The bench had issued notices to the respondents through the Clifton SHO, and directed the SSP concerned to ensure that notices were served on the absent respondents. Their counsel filed power on behalf of Durrani, Suddle, Ahmed, Basit, Mehmood and Tahir, while other respondents Mustafa, Ahmed Khan, Hameed, Gulzar Khan and Hafeez were present.

The provincial law officer informed the court that some co-accused, including Sharif, former Karachi police chief Hayat and other police officials Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani, Agha Mohammad Jamil and Muslim Shah had passed away. The court told the East SSP to verify their deaths and submit a report in the next hearing.

The bench also directed the acquitted accused belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Shaheed Bhutto group (PPP-SB) to engage their counsel in an encounter case registered by the police. The court said the matter was pending since 2010, adding that it would be heard on January 23.

The trial court had also acquitted PPP-SB activists Ghulam Mustafa, Mehmood, Asif Akhtar, Dr Mazhar Memon and Asghar Ali in an encounter FIR registered by the police for the same incident.

The appeal filed on behalf of complainant Noor Mohammad read that in an astonishing judgment the trial court had acquitted all the defendants and, hence, indirectly adjudicated that no one was responsible for the eight deaths and four injuries caused by the police on the night of September 20, 1996.

The appellant’s counsel questioned the legality of the trial court’s judgment, saying that the judgment had been passed through a short oral order on December 5.

He added that the written judgment had been issued on December 8, so the impugned judgment was a nullity in the eyes of the law because it had been announced without it having been written or signed by the trial court judge.

The SHC was requested to set aside the trial court’s judgment because it was empowered and justified to re-examine the evidence and draw its own conclusions from it.

Murtaza Bhutto, brother of former prime minister and PPP chief Benazir Bhutto, was killed on September 20, 1996, along with seven others, including his close aide Ashiq Jatoi, in an alleged shoot-out.