Two acquitted in journalist’s murder case

HARIPUR: A court here on Monday acquitted a local journalist and PTI former woman district councillor in the murder case of a journalist, Bakhshish Elahi.

According to Abdul Razaq Chughtai and Shoaib Ali advocates, counsels for Hanif Akhtar, bureau chief of a regional Urdu newspaper, and Hina Akhtar, a former PTI member of the DC, said that Bakshshish Elahi, a bureau chief of Abbottabad-based Urdu daily in Haripur, was assassinated by two motorbike riders on the morning of June 11, 2017 in Lora Chowk, a few yards from his home when he was on the way to Haripur city. The police had registered FIR against Hanif Akhtar and Hina Akhtar when the slain journalist’s brother Zulfiqar Ahmed directly charged them in the murder case. Both the accused later secured bail and the case was put on trial. At the trial stage, the complainant Zulfiqar Ahmed, according to Shoaib Ali advocate, during cross-examination, retracted from his earlier statement, admitting that he had not nominated Hanif and Hina on his own for the murder of his brother but some police officers convinced him on oath that they had solid proofs about the involvement of Hanif and Hina in Elahi’s murder. He told the court that the police officers obtained his signatures on a written statement which he did not read at that time. According to Shoaib Ali advocate, an eyewitness of the case, who was an employee of a CNG station, also denied being witness to the assassination of Elahi during the trial, proving that the police had wrongly implicated Hanif and Hina. After three years of trial, the murder case was referred to the criminal and trial court last month and the judge Sajjad Ahmed Jan, after hearing arguments from the counsels from both sides, acquitted Hanif and Hina, announcing that the prosecution had failed to prove the case.