20-year-old man ‘picked up by LEAs’ found dead in Karachi's outskirts

A young man who was apparently subjected to torture was found dead at the Northern Bypass on Thursday. The 20-year-old’s family claims he and his elder brother were picked up by police and Rangers officials from their Gadap Town home on February 14.

The Edhi Foundation started circulating a message early Thursday morning to inform everyone that a man’s body bearing torture marks had been found in a garbage dump at the Northern Bypass.

The body was first taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital but later moved to the Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, where an autopsy was conducted to suggest that the young man was tortured to death.

ASI Shahbaz Khan, the duty officer at the SITE Super Highway police station who completed all the legal formalities before handing over the body to the heirs, said the man was identified as Moosa Khan.

Protest at Super Highway

On Thursday evening a group of protesters gathered near the Baqai Medical University on Super Highway with Moosa’s body, claiming that the man and his elder brother were picked up by a joint team of police and Rangers from their house in Gadap Town’s Khilji Goth in the wee hours of Wednesday.

The demonstrators blocked both tracks of the highway, stopping all vehicular traffic movement, in order to record their protest against what they claimed to be another extrajudicial killing.

They shouted slogans against police and Rangers, demanding of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to investigate Moosa Khan’s alleged murder.

The young man’s cousin Ajmal told The News that local police and paramilitary officials had raided Moosa’s house at 2am on February 14. The officials told the family they were taking the man and his elder brother Essa Khan away for interrogation and would release them later, said the cousin.

On Thursday, however, one of his relatives who is a policeman deployed at the SITE Super Highway police station, informed the family of Moosa’s body, added Ajmal. “Then I reached the site from where Edhi workers were taking his body to the hospital. His post-mortem examination at the Civil Hospital found that his death was caused by torture.”

Another cousin named Javed told The News that Essa was still in the custody of police and Rangers officials. He fears the elder brother may meet the same fate as Moosa. Javed claimed that a joint team of police and Rangers officials had picked up two more members of the Akakhail tribe, namely Nadir Khan and Zar Jaan, a few days before the brothers were taken away.

District Malir SSP Adeel Hussain Chandio rejected the allegations levelled by Moosa’s family, saying police officials had not picked up the man or his elder brother. East Zone acting DIGP Saqib Ismail Memon assured The News that the police had paid heed to the claims made by Moosa’s family, saying an investigation had been initiated to ascertain the facts. He has directed his subordinates to immediately probe the allegations and submit him a report on their findings.