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Thursday March 28, 2024

CTD denied 12 cops’ physical remand

By our correspondents
June 18, 2017

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) hearing the case of 12 policemen allegedly involved in the jailbreak of two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) terrorists turned down the Counter Terrorism Department’s (CTD) request for physical remand of the cops on Saturday.

Shaikh Mohammad Mumtaz – also known as Firaun, Sher Khan, Shahzad and Bhai – and Mohammad Ahmed Khan, alias Munna, escaped from the judicial complex of the Central Jail Karachi on June 14.

Prison Superintendent Ghulam Murtaza Shaikh, Deputy Superintendent Faheem Memon, Assistant Superintendent Abdul Rehman Shaikh, Assistant Sub-Inspector Faroosh Mohammad, Special Police Commando Nawab Ali, and police constables Atta Mohammad, Mohammad Amir, Abdul Ghaffar, Saeed Ahmed, Mohammad Sajjad, Tagial and Nadir Ali were subsequently arrested for “negligence”.

The ATC’s administrative judge told the counterterrorism officials on Saturday that the 12 policemen had already been remanded to the New Town police by Judicial Magistrate (East) Khalid Rajpar so they could not be remanded again.

The ATC said that since the investigating officer had not requested for physical remand, the lower court sent them to prison on judicial remand. The judge also underlined the fact that the case against the policemen was not registered under the provisions of terrorism.

In a later development the matter was taken up by a team of CTD officials who presented the accused before the ATC of administrative judge housed at the Sindh High Court building. But the counterterrorism officials’ plea of physical remand was rejected.

The ATC said that unless the case was officially transferred from the court of the judicial magistrate and provisions of terrorism were inserted, it was impossible to take up the case and accuse the policemen of terrorism.

Prisons DIG Ashraf Ali Nizamani had written to the New Town SHO to register a case against the cops. Consequently, a case was registered under the provisions dealing with negligence resulting in the escape of accused.

The News has learnt that the CTD is now consulting with the Sindh prosecutor general to take the accused to task under the provisions of terrorism.

Raja Umer Khattab, who heads the Sindh CTD’s Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group, had earlier told The News that the escaped terrorist Shaikh Mumtaz worked with the target-killing team of the LeJ’s Naeem Bukhari group, adding that after his arrest he had confessed to his involvement in 65 heinous crimes, including target killings, and was challaned in 32 cases of target killings, including murders of police officials.

The CTD official said the other escaped terrorist Ahmed Khan worked with the LeJ’s Korangi group and was involved in seven cases of target killings.

He said the law enforcers had almost dismantled the LeJ’s network, adding that the escape of the two hardcore terrorists posed another challenge to the authorities.

He feared that Mumtaz might regroup his target-killing team in the near future, but the official made the assurance that the law enforcers were making all-out efforts to arrests the escaped terrorists.