A five-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted to probe Naqeebullah Mehsud’s extrajudicial killing has completed its report.
The team will submit the report to the anti-terrorism court where former Malir SSP Rao Anwar and his accomplices are under trial on April 22.
Sources privy to the investigations told Daily Times on Friday that Anwar, in his statement to the JIT, tried transferring the responsibility for the extrajudicial murder on his subordinate officers – Abbas Town police post in-charge Akbar Mallah and Faisal Mehmood.
“They were my trusted subordinates but they broke my trust,” Anwar was quoted as having said during investigation. “They picked up at least five people and later released four of them after taking at least Rs1.6 million in ransom.” Sources further said that the JIT team had also recorded statements of two of the four kidnapped men who were later released by Anwar and his accomplices.
SSP Anwar and his police party had gone into hiding after the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud got highlighted on social media and demands started emerging for their arrest and prosecution. Naqeebullah, along with three others, was extrajudicially killed in Shah Latif locality on January 13. Immediately after the incident, Anwar claimed that all four men were associated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Islamic State.
A murder case along with the clause of the anti-terrorism act was registered against Anwar and his team members after a three-member inquiry committee headed by Additional IG Sanaullah Abbasi found them guilty. So far, Anwar and at least 11 other policemen have been arrested by the police, while about a dozen members of the team have yet to be arrested.
Published in Daily Times, April 21st 2018.
