ATC likely to indict suspects in Ali Raza Abidi murder case on Sept 2

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) is likely to indict four suspects for the murder of former lawmaker Ali Raza Abidi on September 2 as it supplied copies of the charge sheet to them on Friday.

The four suspects, Abdul Haseeb, Muhammad Ghazali, Muhammad Farooq and Abu Bakr, were arrested by the police in connection with the killing while four others, Mustafa, Faizan, Hasnain and Bilal, have been declared proclaimed offenders in the case.

Former Muttahida Qaumi Movement MNA Abidi was shot dead outside his residence in Defence Housing Authority by armed motorcyclists in an apparent targeted attack in December 2018. The Counter-Terrorism Department suspected the involvement of a foreign spy agency in the murder to cause unrest in the city.

At the time of the arrests, CTD SSP Naveed Ahmed Khawaja said that at least eight people were involved in the murder and the mastermind of the killing was still at large. He explained that the CTD first arrested Farooq and later apprehended three more suspects, Haseeb, Ghazali and Bakr. According to the SSP, they told the investigators that Mustafa, Faizan, Hasnain and Bilal were their accomplices.

The officer also claimed that an unidentified men had paid the suspects Rs800,000 for the killing. At the outset of the hearing on Friday, the ATC-11 judge supplied copies of the prosecution documents to the defendants and issued permanent warrants of arrest against the absconding suspects. The court had previously declared them proclaimed offenders and ordered forfeiture of their properties.

On a previous hearing, the ATC had rejected the bail application moved by Farooq, Ghazali and Bakr who contended that they were innocent and were falsely implicated in the case. They requested the court to grant them post-arrest bail and maintained that they were ready to face the charges.

The prosecutor had opposed the bail plea and argued that the investigators had sufficient incriminating evidence against the suspects. He said the suspects should not be set free on bail as it could affect the proceedings in case they ran away.

After listening to the arguments from both the sides, the judge had rejected the bail applications and observed that the prosecution had evidence against them and prima facie they were involved in the murder.

The FIR of the incident was registered under sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 read with the section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 on the complaint of the deceased’s father, Akhlaq Abidi, at the Gizri police station.