Four indicted in Sea View murder case

The Judicial Magistrate (South) on Wednesday indicted four accused in the murder case of teenager Zafir Zuberi, who was killed in a road rage incident in Defence last year.

As the court read the charges, the accused – Khawar Burney, Junaid Shah, Abdur Rehman and Hammad – denied them and pleaded not guilty. The court then ordered the prosecution to produce the witnesses against the four accused at the next date of hearing.

Zuberi, an 18-year-old college student, was shot dead and his friend was left injured on December 3, 2017 on Sea View Road in DHA Phase 8. He and his friends were speeding on the road when they hit a motorcyclist and drove off instead of stopping. The bike rider’s friends then chased the car Zuberi was in and opened fire. They also thrashed the occupants and, according to witnesses, left an injured Zuberi for dead.

Khawar Burney, the main accused, along with Rehman, Hammad and Shah are being tried in the murder case. A two-member team of state attorneys have already raised objections to the final charge sheet prepared by the investigation officer (IO) Amir Altaf, questioning the release of three men from the case early during the investigation.

The attorneys said three cousins of the key accused, Haider Hussain Burney, Hasan Hussain Burney and Raza Hussain Burney, were freed from the charges on the police level and the court concerned was not properly informed about the matter of release. They added that the police had also failed to lodge a case of using a shotgun against the accused. The IO had tried to conceal the case facts, the two attorneys said.

Attack on college principal

Meanwhile, Saad Aziz, a death row convict who belongs to Al- Qaeda, rejected the police’s stance that he was involved in an attack on Debra Lobo, an American teacher and vice principal of Jinnah Dental College, three years ago.

At a hearing in front of a judicial magistrate on Wednesday, Aziz, who has already been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court in the Safoora Goth bus carnage case, claimed that he was being falsely implicated in the case.

At a previous hearing, Debra Lobo, herself had failed to identify Aziz as an attacker and had said she had not seen this attacker as the one who fired at her and left her injured in the shooting that occurred in April 2015 as she was returning home in her car.

In his statement to the court at Wednesday’s hearing, Aziz said he was arrested on May 18, 2015 by some cops in plain clothes from his house and on the other hand an officer of Sindh police claimed to have arrested him on May 19, 2015. He further alleged that the police had made a false claim that he was arrested after a police encounter on May 20.

According to him, a man named Javed used to visit CTD Civil Lines police station and later he claimed to identify Aziz as the attacker.

The court later adjourned the hearing while reserving its ruling on the matter. It is pertinent to mention that an ATC has already acquitted Aziz and Tahir Hussain Minhas, alias Saaein, of the 2015 case of a bomb attack on a school in North Nazimabad. He has also been acquitted in another case pertaining to charges of attempted murder of policemen due to the lack of evidence against him.

Aziz was alleged to have attacked a police party on June 3, 2015 in Samnabad. According to the police, officers had repulsed the attack by the Al-Qaeda militant and he had then fled. However, the prosecution remained unable to prove the charges and the court acquitted him.