Trial record transferred to Kandhkot ATC
Karachi: The record of Wali Khan Babar’s murder trial was transferred from Karachi’s Anti-Terrorism Court-III to an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Khandkot on Wednesday.
ATC-III judge Saleem Raza Baloch had ordered the safe transfer of the case file to the Kandhkot court headed by Mushtaq Ahmed Leghari.
Geo News reporter Babar was shot dead in Liaquatabad on January 13, 2011, when he was going home from office. The case was assigned to the Special Investigation Unit.
The custody of the accused is also being shifted to Kandhkot.
After receiving the record, the court fixed November 19 to proceed with the trial.
This high-profile murder trial has been transferred from Karachi by the Sindh High Court on the request of the provincial government over security concerns. The names of the attorneys are being kept secret due to security concerns.
Special Public Prosecutor Abdul Maroof, who represented the state in the case at ATC-III, had made a request to the court to direct a senior police officer to provide a special squad to transfer the documents to the Kandhkot ATC.
Maroof had said in his application that the case was of a sensitive nature and several witnesses and a lawyer of the complainant had been killed; therefore, those taking the case file and court staff from Karachi to Kashmore would need strict security.
Several witnesses in the case have been killed. Advocate Naimat Ali Randhawa died and his son suffered injuries when their car came under attack in North Nazimabad on September 26. The lawyer had agreed to fight the murder case on behalf of the complainant.
Earlier, two policemen, a police officer’s brother and an informer linked to the investigation into the reporter’s murder had been killed one after another.
Rajab Ali Bengali, a police informer, is stated to be the first victim, whose body was found in a sack on January 29, 2011, in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.
The second victim was Constable Asif Rafiq, who was killed in a drive-by shooting by two men on a motorcycle on January 31, 2011. He had identified the vehicle the attackers had used. He was at the spot at the time of the murder and had noted down its registration number.
Head Constable Arshad Kundi is believed to be the third victim linked to the investigation. He was killed in a drive-by-shooting on March 19, 2011, in Sohrab Goth.
On April 7, 2011, a brother of the SHO of the Super Market police station, Shafiq Tanoli, was shot dead. Tanoli told reporters that Naveed Khan had been killed to pressurise him.
In April 2011, the then city police chief had announced that five men involved in target killings, including Babar’s murderer, had been arrested. They were identified as Faisal Mehmood, Mohammed Ali Rizvi, Mohammad Shahrukh Khan, Syed Tahir Naveed Shah and Mohammed Shakeel.
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