KARACHI, March 19: An anti-terrorism court indicted on Wednesday five accused on charges of masterminding a suicide attack on a leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Allama Hassan Turabi, that killed him along with his nephew on July 14, 2006.
The accused, Sultan Mahmood alias Saifullah, Mohammad Amin alias Khalid Shaheen, Mohammad Akbar Khan, Mohammad Rehman alias Mani and Ashfaq Qureshi, pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.
The judge, Ahmed Nawaz Sheikh of ATC-III, who is conducting the trial inside the Central Prison, summoned all the prosecution witnesses on the next date of hearing to record their statements.
The prosecution said that the Sindh chief of the Tehrik-i-Islami and provincial vice-president of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Allama Hasan Turabi, and his young nephew, Ali Turabi, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the religious leader’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal residence on July 14, 2006.
He was coming back home after attending an anti-Israel demonstration organized by the alliance of religious parties. The alleged suicide bomber was later identified as Abdul Karim. Three police guards, Azhar Hussain, Fakhar Hussain, Mohammad Rashid, and a woman, Noreen, were also injured in the blast.
The accused were also charged with planting a remote-controlled bomb in a cart on April 6, 2006 with an intention to kill Allama Hasan Turbi when he was travelling on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road in the jurisdiction of the Mubina Town police. However, Allama Turabi escaped unhurt in this attempt on his life.
Mufti Illyas, Khalid Khan, Sohail Siddiqui and Ali Hasan were declared as absconders in the case.
A case (FIR No 232/06) was registered against the accused at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station under Sections 302, 324, 427, 109, 120/34 of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 3/5 of the Explosives Act read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The court fixed April 9 as the next date of hearing.
Meanwhile, the administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts, Justice Khawaja Naveed Ahmed, remanded on Wednesday four accused in a kidnapping for ransom case in police custody till April 1.
The prosecution said that Rashid, Adnan Qureshi, Akthar, Syed Ahmed and police constable Aslam had kidnapped a 14-year-old boy from Khudadad Colony in the limits of the Brigade police on March 13, 2008 when the boy was going to school.
The accused took the kidnap victim to Orangi Town’s section 5-E and demanded a ransom of Rs10 million from his parents. Later, they reportedly reduced the ransom amount to Rs500,000.
The victim’s family informed the police about the matter and a team of the Anti-violent Crime Unit (AVCU) raided the kidnappers’ home on March 18 and arrested four kidnappers and recovered the boy from their custody. However, the fifth accused, Rashid, managed to escape.
The police registered a case (FIR No 46/08) at the Brigade police station under Section 365-A/34 of Pakistan Penal Code against the accused. The court directed the police to produce the accused on the next hearing while Rashid was declared an absconder. The accused Aslam was working as a constable at the Nazimabad police station.
Conviction challenged
An appellate bench of the Sindh High Court on Tuesday admitted an appeal for regular hearing challenging the conviction in the US consulate bombing case by an anti-terrorism court.
The bench comprising Justices Ms Qaiser Iqbal and Syed Mehmood Alam Rizvi issued a notice to the Sindh advocate-general and directed that the appeal be taken up for hearing after three months.
The appellant, Anwarul Haq, an alleged member of the Al-Qaeda, was sentenced to death on four counts, life imprisonment on three counts and a fine of Rs1.5 million was also imposed on him, in case of non-payment he would have to undergo an additional three years imprisonment.
The judge, Ahmed Nawaz Shaikh, of the ATC-III convicted him on March 5 for masterminding a suicide attack outside the US consulate on March 2, 2006 resulting in the deaths of four people including a US diplomat David Foy and leaving 54 others injured.
The co-accused, Usman Ghani, was acquitted on the ground of lack of evidence against him.
The appellant, through his counsel Ilyas Khan and Mohammad Farooq, challenged the conviction and submitted that there were glaring contradictions in the statements of the prosecution witnesses and their presence on the blast site was also doubtful, while eyewitnesses were unlawfully placed by the prosecution in the witnesses list. They further submitted that the prosecution also failed to produce any evidence to support the presence of eyewitnesses on the scene of the blast.
They pleaded to set aside the death sentence given to their client and acquit him in the case.
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