Two Sipah-e-Sahaba activists sentenced to death for target killings

An anti-terrorism court on Thursday sentenced two activists of the proscribed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) to death, convicting them of the targeted killings of two people, a shopkeeper and a physician belonging to the Shia community.

Syed Ahmed Hassan and Muhammad Naeem Khan were found guilty of murdering Shehryar Abbas Rizvi in July 2014 and Hassan was also found guilty of murdering Dr Naseem Aun Jafferi in August the same year.

Pronouncing the verdict, the ATC-6 judge observed that the cases were not of some regular homicide, arising out of an act of robbery, land or a matrimonial dispute, but the victims were targeted and these acts created terror and insecurity, and panicked people, particularly the bereaved families.

According to the prosecution, Hassan and Khan worked for the banned sectarian militant outfit, SSP, and targeted Rizvi at his shop in the Jamshed Road neighborhood on June 14, 2014. Rizvi had died on the spot, according to his brother Rakim.

He told the police that his younger brother Fahad received a phone call and quickly left home taking the car keys. “I called Shehryar on his cell but someone else picked up and told that my brother had been shot. I went to his shop and found him in a pool of blood in his chair. He was shot in head and face.”

He added, “I felt that Shehryar has died but I took him to Liaquat National Hospital with Fahad and a friend where doctors confirmed that my brother had expired.” Rakim recorded his statement to the police later the next day after the burial.

In the other case, Adeel, a nephew of Dr Jafferi, said that on August 30, 2014 his uncle was at his Javed Clinic near Hussaini Imambargah in Korangi 2 ½, seeing patients, when three men on a motorcycle came and two of them, whose faces were covered, disembarked and shot at my uncle. He died on the way to hospital.

Adeel added that at the time of his death Dr Jafferi also served as the information secretary for the Pakistan Peoples Party in the Korangi district. He lodged an FIR against the three unknown persons soon after the murder.

The prosecution maintained that both the murders had sectarian motivation and the accused along with their absconding accomplices systematically targeted them after a recce in different neighborhoods.

The accused on the other hand pleaded innocence and maintained that they were picked up by police and later were falsely implicated in these cases. They accused police of malafide intentions.

Concluding the trial, the judge remarked that the prosecution successfully established its case against the accused while they remain unable to prove their innocence. Both the accused were given capital punishment and were also ordered to pay a fine of Rs200,000 to each of the victims’ families.

Security sought

The same court wrote a letter to the inspector general (IG) of the Sindh Police to arrange security for Allama Aurangzeb Farooqui for his hearing as a private witness in a case pertaining to an attack, allegedly carried out by proscribed militant outfit Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP), on his life.

Farooqui, who contested the 2018 general election in NA-238 on a ticket of the Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party, was the central president of the banned Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, which previously operated under the banner of the SSP before its proscription.

He survived an assassination attempt on his life on December 25, 2012, as his motorcade came under attack near Moti Mahal in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. Four of his police guards, a private gunman and a driver were killed in the firing.

The ATC-6 wrote to the IGP that Farooqui had to appear in the court to record his testimony in the case since he was an eyewitness to the incident and apparently was the prime target of the shooters. The judge asked for the matter to be treated as most urgent.

An activist of the SMP, Johar Hussain alias Rehman alias Jaffer, is being tried for the attack while more than six other workers of the banned sectarian outfit have been declared proclaimed offenders in the case. So far, the court has recorded the testimonies of 10 witnesses.