Court plans speedy trial in DHA double murder case

A sessions court is likely to schedule the DHA double murder case on August 12 for a speedy trial. The additional district and sessions judge, Faraz Ahmed Chandio, ordered on Thursday that on the next haring, a schedule would be issued for the trial to be conducted under the Model Criminal Trial Court.

Meanwhile, the judge also issued bailable warrants for the arrest of prosecution witnesses who have not been appearing in the court for recording their testimonies. Atif and his absconding brother Adil Zaman have been accused of murdering anchorperson Mureed Abbas and Khizar Hayat in Defence Housing Authority on July 9, 2019.

According to the prosecution, the victims had invested in a business run by Atif, and over his failure to pay up their shares in the profit, they started demanding their money back, due to which the suspect killed them.

The charge sheet read that the suspect summoned the victims at different places on the night of the incident, saying that he would return their money; however, he first killed Hayat at a traffic signal and afterwards went to kill Abbas in an office.

Following the murders, it added, when police raided Atif’s apartment, he shot himself in the torso. He was taken to a private hospital for treatment where he stayed in intensive care for a few days.

On a previous hearing, the court had rejected his bail application on the ground that prima facie sufficient evidence was available against him; therefore, he was not entitled to be set free because it could affect the case.

Meanwhile, the court has bifurcated the case for Adil, who has been absconding since the Supreme Court revoked his bail in September 2020. He will be charged separately after he is arrested again.

Adil was nabbed in October 2019 from a northern part of the country. However, the court granted him bail in June 2020 following which the complainant in the case, Zara Khan, Abbas’s wife, had moved to the appellate forum against it.

In a recent interview with The News, she had deplored that the case had seen a fair share of delays since beginning and they were continuing since the indictment took over one and a half year to occur in February, 2021.