Judge accepts charge sheet against ‘murderer, extortionist’

The administrative judge of an anti-terrorism court (ATC), on Friday, accepted a charge-sheet against a suspected extortionist, Anwar Baloch, also accused of killing a factory supervisor for not paying Rs2,000 extortion in January 2015, besides other crimes.

Presented by SHO Bilal Colony police station, Mohsin Zaidi, the charge-sheet maintained that Baloch was involved in several cases and was absconding since 2014.

The judge while accepting the charge-sheet ordered to send the case to the ATC concerned for a trial.

Two of Baloch’s accomplices, Ahmed Hassan and Abdul Raheem alias Raheem Bengali, in the murder of the factory supervisor, Saleemuddin, were already under detention; the murder took place inside the factory identified as Islam Designer, located in Godhra Colony, New Karachi.

The gruesome shooting was caught on a CCTV camera and was vastly circulated over the social and electronic media.

It was the footage that led to the arrest of Raheem.

He was given up by his mother who voluntarily approached the police to tell them the boy in the footage was her son.

His mother, Rabia Bibi, and father, Muhammad Akbar, were kept in detention till the police found Raheem and took him into custody.

He was arrested during a search operation in New Karachi.

According to Raheem, he had gone to the factory with Baloch, Hassan and a third associate, Ayaz.

He added that when the supervisor refused to pay up, Baloch asked him to shoot him dead. “When I refused, Baloch threatened to kill me,” he said.

“He told me to keep firing till the man was dead. I shot him three times.”

The police claimed that besides being wanted for Saleemuddin’s murder, Raheem and the others were also involved in the murder of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital’s Dr Arif Mustafa in New Karachi in 2014.

They said that Raheem and his companions had also killed a policeman identified as Subhan and injured another.

The police further claimed the men were affiliated with both a political and religious organisation.

Besides the murders, the men were also alleged to be involved in demanding extortions from several factory owners in the New Karachi industrial vicinity.