An anti-terrorism court, on Friday, acquitted 15 suspects accused of the murder of a 15-year-old, Ambreen, in Abbottabad in May 2016 on the basis of missing evidence.
Ambreen was strangled to be later set on fire in Makol village in Donga Gali for allegedly helping a couple elope on April 23, 2016.
The elders had called a 15-member jirga on April 28, 2016, and issued orders that allegedly led to her murder and setting ablaze the vehicle used by the girls to escape the village.
Ambreen was then taken to an abandoned property where she was allegedly drugged, killed and ties to the backseat of a parked van, which was then doused with petrol and set on fire. Her charred body was found on May 2, 2016.
Abbottabad District Police Officer, Khurram Rasheed, had then said that Ambreen’s poor family was unable to resist the jirga decision of her murder and that most of the jirga’s members were criminals and not village elders.
Police had recovered drugs from an abandoned house near the site of murder as well as a can of petrol allegedly used to start the fire. Another vehicle parked near the gutted van was also damaged. Yet, the fact that police officers had arrested the suspects by going through their mobile phone records made all of the aforesaid evidence seem inadequate.
Senior lawyer blames police for faulty investigation, arresting wrong people
The driver and owner of the torched vehicle, Mohammad Naseer, had registered a complaint under sections 302/436 and 427 at the Donga Gali police station on April 29, 2016.
Police arrested 14 people identified as Siraj Ali, Shabbir Ahmed, Javed Akhter, Gul Zareen, Afzal Muneer, Mohammad Naseer (driver), Pervez (head of the jirga), Umer Zaib, Saeed, Gul Zaman son of Abdul Sattar, Gul Zaman son of Lal Akbar, Safdar, Pervez, and Shamim (Ambreen’s mother) during its investigation.
Saima, the girl who was allegedly helped by Ambreen in escaping the village, had then told media sources that the deceased was neither her friend nor knew anything about her marriage. She had also requested the authorities to provide her security because Ambreen’s murderers were threatening her and her husband.
A senior lawyer, not willing to be named, had asserted in May 2016, that the police was carrying a faulty investigation because the people accused of the girl’s murder had decreed against the girl who had eloped with her lover, not against Ambreen. He further maintained that the police had arrested these men on the basis of phone calls made to them by the councillor, Pervez, to participate in the jirga.
Published in Daily Times, February 23rd 2019.
