Charges framed against Ubaid K2,others in Amanullah Niazi murder case

KARACHI: Charges were framed in the murder of Amanullah Khan Niazi and others against Ubaidur Rehman alias Ubaid K2 and two of his accomplices, Tanveer Chand and Sajjad, on Thursday before a judge of the anti-terrorism court (ATC) who conducted the hearing in a court housed at the Central Prison.
When the charges were read out to the three accused, they pleaded not guilty.
On this, the court decided to summon the prosecution witnesses to testify in the case pertaining to the killing of the then Deputy Superintendent of Jail, Amanullah Khan Niazi, his driver, Akhter Hassan, and other policemen Shafiullah, Muhammad Azeem and Sabir Sultan in the area of Garden police station on June 15, 2006.
The court would examine on October 16 the evidence recorded by Inspector Shehzad and 36 other witnesses in this case.
More than a dozen accused, including Abu Irfan alias Urfi, Noman alias Nomi, Zahid alias Zahid Kala, Farhan alias Farhan Kala, Jamal Pasra, Hashim, Yaseen, Shafique, Ishtiaq alias Police-Wala, Javed Hassan and Aneesur Rehman alias Ali, are absconding and have been declared proclaimed offenders.
The investigation officer (IO) once submitted in the court that two co-accused, Faisal and Urfi, were already under detention in some other cases.
A report confirming the alleged involvement of Ubaidur Rehman alias Ubaid K2 in the murder of Deputy Superintendent (DS) of Central Prison Amanullah Khan Niazi and others was submitted to the ATC which decided to conduct hearings against the nominated accused. It was alleged that the accused being the workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had killed Niazi as he refused to provide any facilities to Saulat Mirza and Saeed alias Saeed Bharam in the central prison.
Saulat Mirza was later hanged for murdering the then managing director of KESC, Shahid Hamid, and his driver.
Ubaid K2 was arrested on March 11 when the Rangers raided the MQM headquarters Nine Zero and other adjoining areas and also arrested a leader of the MQM Amir Khan and dozens of other MQM activists.
Amir Khan was kept under detention for 90 days and later was handed over to the Azizabad police station where a case was registered against him for having allegedly facilitated the criminals and provided them shelter. He is being tried in this case in an ATC and is now on bail. The report claimed that Ubaid had told the investigators that DS Amanullah Khan Niazi was murdered because he had been refusing to provide facilities to Ubaid’s detained party workers, Saulat Mirza, Saeed Bharam and Nadir Shah.
He further told the investigators that the plan to kill Amanullah was made after the release of Saeed Bharam from the central prison.
The plan was finally implemented on June 15, 2006 when the perpetrators killed Amanullah and others near Saddar during a traffic jam and fled.