Key suspect in 2015 Bahria College student murder case arrested

Sindh’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) on Tuesday claimed to have arrested a key suspect involved in the 2015 abduction and murder of a Bahria College student.

CTD officials said the 22-year-old victim was killed the same day he was kidnapped, adding that his killers were none other than his own friends who wished a ransom for his release. “Adeel Rehman was the key suspect in the case,” said the CTD’s Raja Umer Khattab. “He had fled to Dubai to escape being arrested but was caught on his return.”

The student in question, Bilal Rizwan, resided in the Al Falah locality in District East and was kidnapped on November 4, 2015. He was murdered the same day, but for his family he remained missing.

The Sindh High Court took notice of the incident and ordered that he be rescued. Three days after his disappearance, a complaint was registered at the Shah Faisal Colony police station against unidentified suspects. His body was found on December 12, 2015.

Khattab said that victim’s friends Rehman, Noman Qureshi and Danish Amir were involved in the incident, adding that there were multiple reasons behind his abduction and murder. Citing those reasons, the officer said the suspects wished ransom from the victim’s family and Rehman was angry because the victim was seeing his sister. Two of their companions, Noman and Danish, were arrested by the CTD in June 2007, he added.

ACLC encounter

The Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) claimed to have killed three members of a gang involved in ransom kidnappings, robberies and snatching of government officials’ vehicles. ACLC officials said that after being tipped off, a police party intercepted a car near Afghan Morr on the Northern Bypass, but the suspects in the vehicle opened fire on the law enforcers instead of stopping.

The police retaliated and, after a brief gun battle, killed all the three suspects, who were later identified as Ashok Kumar, Asadullah Imrani and Shahzad Abbasi. The ACLC team impounded their four-wheeler and seized the rifle and two pistols found on them.

ACLC chief SSP Munir Shaikh said Abbasi led the gang and was arrested for the first time in 2002 for over 44 criminal cases, adding that Imrani had never been arrested. As for Kumar, the SSP said he was involved in crimes since 1999 and had been arrested multiple times, adding that he was arrested for the first time in 1999 in Hyderabad for a ransom kidnapping but released the next year.

The officer said Kumar was arrested again in 2003 by the ACLC in Karachi for car lifting and then again in 2005 by the Sharea Faisal police for ransom kidnapping. Shaikh said the man was arrested in 2006 by the Frere police for ransom kidnapping and sentenced to 25 years in prison but was released on bail in September last year, following which he reorganised his gang.

The SSP said that this March 23 he was arrested again and jailed but was once more released on bail on July 25, adding that as many as 39 cases were registered against Kumar.