Accused of DHA double murder granted bail as case lingers on

A sessions court on Wednesday granted bail to Adil Zaman, the co-accused for the murders of anchorperson Mureed Abbas and his friend Khizar Hayat, in a case pertaining to unlawful use of a firearm.

The additional district and sessions judge south, Aurangzeb Shah, ordered Adil to submit a surety bond of Rs50,000 with the court in order to secure his release on bail. Previously, he was granted bail in the murders case by the Sindh High Court.

Adil and his brother, Atif Zaman, are booked for the murders of Abbas and Hayat in the Defence Housing Authority on July 9, 2019. According to the prosecution, Atif had shot himself in the torso as the police reached his apartment while Adil had run away and left the city.

On June 13, a sessions court, inside the central prison, had again deferred the indictment of Zaman brothers in the murders case as neither the accused nor their counsels appeared attended the hearing.

The court had put off the hearing till July 2 and issued directions to the accused to ensure their presence on the next hearing so that the indictment process could be completed which had been deferring since January.

According to the charge sheet, Atif called Abbas and Hayat, who were his business partners, to different places in DHA on the pretext of returning some of the amounts he owed them. He first allegedly shot Hayat at a signal and later went to kill Abbas in an office. CCTV footages show Adil accompanying Atif during this spree.

Since the beginning, the case has been facing dramatic delays. According to police, several people, including the victims, had invested money in a tyre business of Atif against profits. But the suspect had not been paying his investors for months, saying that his business had suffered some losses.

Due to the shady nature of the scheme, the National Accountability Bureau had also started an inquiry into the apparent scam and found 31 bank accounts in which Atif kept his money. Recently, a banking court sought a reply from Atif over a complaint filed against him by a bank for the recovery of Rs5 million.

The FIRs in the murder case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 325 (attempt to commit suicide) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 23(1)A of the Sindh Arms Act at the Darakhshan police station.

The police had registered another case against Adil after it was disclosed that the weapon which Atif used in the offence belonged to him.