DIG, FIA director, journalist to testify in Perween Rahman murder case

Allowing an application moved by the complainant side in the Perween Rahman murder case, the anti-terrorism court (ATC) number VII in the Central Jail Karachi has ordered recording of five ‘important’ witnesses during the trial.

The judge issued notice to five people, including a journalist, director of the Federal Investigation Agency and a deputy inspector general of police, directing them to testify in the court regarding the murder.

Fifty-six years old Perween was assassinated in a drive-by shooting on the Banaras flyover on March 13, 2013. She was a renowned urban planner and social activist running an NGO called Orangi Pilot Project in the Orangi Town neighbourhood.

On a previous hearing, the counsel representing Rahman’s sister Aquila Ismail had asked the court to record testimonies of the witnesses named in the fifth joint investigation team’s report and make them part of the case.

The judge, after hearing arguments from the prosecution and the defence, had reserved its order on the application which was pronounced on Monday. He ordered the five people to depose their statements in the court.

Five men, including a local leader of Awami National Party Abdul Raheem Swati, his son Imran Swati, Ayaz Shamzai, Ahmed Khan and Amjad Hussain, have been tried for the murder. Investigation states that the accused ran a criminal enterprise in the area stealing water and land from the public and since Rahman’s work hurt their ambitions, they decided to kill her.

The latest supplementary charge sheet filed by the fifth JIT in the case had revealed that the OPP director had named her suspected killer in an interview to a journalist two years before her assassination.

The charge sheet quoted her interview to a journalist, in which she had referred to Raheem as a ‘land grabber and extortionist’, claiming that he was trying to occupy land reserved for an OPP office.

The report stated that the journalist had verified the content of the said interview and also provided an audio clip of the same which was aired on the US-based international broadcaster, Public Radio International (PRI), in January 2012.

The JIT was constituted on the orders of the apex court after Ismail had expressed her dissatisfaction at the Sindh police, requesting that the case be handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency. The JIT mentioned in the report that they had quizzed politicians, journalists and land developers during the investigations and in the light of their findings, they observed that Perween was killed by Raheem and his accomplices.