Bail in Naqeeb murder case can harm evidence, SHC told

KARACHI: The investigating officer of the Naqeebullah Mehsud murder case has requested the Sindh High Court (SHC) to cancel the concession of bail to nominated accused, including former SSP Rao Anwar, expressing fear that the accused can harm the prosecution’s case if they are allowed to remain free during the trial.

Submitting a report in the SHC on the application of Mehsud’s family, who seeks the cancellation of bail granted to Anwar and others in the 27-year-old’s extrajudicial killing case, SSP Rizwan Ahmed Khan said the release of the accused on bail can harm the prosecution’s case. He said the police encounter in which Mehsud and others were killed was declared fake after the investigation report was submitted in the trial court. The IO said the nominated accused had removed several evidences from the scene of the crime, because of which the police collected digital and technical evidences to prove the case against them.

He said that some accused have been granted bail by the trial court while the remaining accused are making efforts for it, adding that if their bail is confirmed, there is a possibility that the accused will either try to turn the prosecution witnesses hostile or get them disappeared.

The officer said the accused have already managed to force prosecution witness Shahzad Jehangir to change his statement prior to the trial court’s proceedings, sending him into hiding. He expressed fear that the accused can threaten more prosecution witnesses to change their statements despite the fact that there are digital and technical evidences that have proved their guilt in the trial court. He requested the court to cancel the bail of prime accused Anwar, former DSP Qamar Ahmed Sheikh and other accused, as the concession of their bail can jeopardise the prosecution’s case. After taking the report on record, the court adjourned the hearing until February 15. Mehsud’s father Mohammad Khan said in his application that Anwar and his subordinates had been booked for murdering his son and three other citizens in a fake police encounter on January 13 last year in Shah Latif Town, and that the trial is pending in an anti-terrorism court (ATC).

Khan’s counsel Faisal Siddiqui said Anwar is very influential, adding that his power is evident from the fact that since his arrest in the case on March 21, he has been provided VVIP and discriminatory treatment, and not even for a day has he been confined to prison, but rather his house has been declared a sub-jail. Siddiqui said that due to discriminatory and illegal favours being accorded to Anwar, the accused had been threatening the prosecution witnesses and one of the prosecution witnesses, Jehangir, also retracted his statement.

The counsel remarked that the petitioner had expressed no confidence in the presiding officer of the ATC and filed a petition in the SHC, but despite the pendency of the transfer application, the ATC judge still proceeded with the case in a hurried manner and granted bail to Anwar.

Siddiqui said the trial court’s bail granting order was patently illegal and had been passed in violation of the principles of granting bail, thereby resulting in the miscarriage of justice. The court was requested to cancel the bail application of Anwar and to remand him to judicial custody.

Separately, the IO told an ATC on Saturday that the key eyewitness of the Naqeeb murder case has gone missing, reported Geo News. SSP Khan presented his report during the hearing of the case in an ATC.