ATC grants police main suspect’s 4-day remand in Mustafa Amir murder case – Pakistan

An anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Tuesday granted the police a four-day physical remand of Armaghan, the main suspect in the Mustafa Amir murder case, following the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) orders.

The SHC set aside his judicial remand earlier today and ordered the formation of a probe body over the matter.

Amir, a 23-year-old, was kidnapped and allegedly murdered by his friends in Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA) on January 6. According to the police, the youth’s friends stuffed his body in the trunk of his car and torched it in the Hub area of Balochistan.

Earlier this month, police arrested Armaghan for injuring policemen in an attempt to resist his detention in connection with Amir’s kidnapping case. Another suspect, Armaghan’s friend Sheraz aka Shavez Bukhari, was remanded in police custody by an antiterrorism court (ATC) last week.

Sindh Acting Prosecutor-General Muntazir Mehdi, on behalf of the Sindh government, had filed revision applications in the SHC, challenging the ATC orders denying the police Armaghan’s physical custody and sending him on judicial remand instead. Another application was also filed against an ATC order on the suspect’s father plea against a raid at his residence.

After issuing notices to the respondents yesterday on four revision pleas, a two-member SHC bench headed by Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput resumed the hearing today.

Armaghan, stated to be in his early twenties, was presented before the court as per the bench’s orders from yesterday. His father, Kamran Qureshi, was also present in the court and brought fruits for his son, alleging that the latter had been tortured during his detention.

Mehdi, Additional Prosecutor-General (APG) Muhammad Iqbal Awan, current Investigation Officer (IO) Inspector Muhammad Ali and previous IO Ameer Ashfaq also appeared before the bench, along with other policemen.

During the hearing, Mehdi, APG Awan and IO Ashfaq presented their contentions before the judges. The additional prosecutor-general sought Armaghan’s physical custody for further investigation.

The court reserved its verdict earlier today and later issued a verdict, a copy of which was seen by Dawn.com, allowing the revision pleas filed by the police and setting aside the ATC orders of February 10 and February 11.

The SHC further directed that Armaghan be presented before an ATC No. II in Karachi today for fresh orders on “all four remand reports”.

The suspect was later presented in the abovementioned ATC whose judge granted the police his four-day physical remand.

On January 12, the local police recovered a charred body in a torched car from Hub, following which the unclaimed body was buried at the Edhi graveyard in Karachi on January 16.

Amir’s family received a ransom call days after his January 6 kidnapping, which the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) said was made to “mislead” the investigators.

A judicial magistrate yesterday allowed an application seeking the exhumation of Amir’s body and directed the provincial health secretary to constitute a medical board to ascertain the cause of his death.

Besides the murder case, first information reports (FIRs) against Armaghan have also been filed over injuring policemen during the February 8 shoot-out and recovery of imported illegal weapons.

Three junior police officers, including the station house officer (SHO), of the Darakhshan police station, were suspended and demoted last week over their “attitude which was not professional”. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon also detailed various “handicaps” faced by the cops during the investigation of the case.

The hearing

When Armaghan was presented before the court — handcuffed and his face covered — his father said to him he was not “looking well”, to which the suspect replied with a “yes”.

At the outset of the hearing, APG Awan read out an FIR before the court and detailed the developments since Amir’s disappearance chronologically.

He stated that the abduction case had been registered against unknown individuals when Amir went missing on January 6, adding that the Darakhshan police recorded his mother’s statement.

After the victim’s family recieved a ransom call on January 13, the case was trasnferred to the Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC), Awan informed the court.

When he started retelling details about the February 8 police raid at a bungalow in DHA where Armaghan was reported to be present, the bench asked who was the CIA officer investigating the case, at which Awan said Ameer was the IO.

“The raid was carried out at 4pm and continued till 9pm,” the additional prosecutor-general told the court.

The bench then inquired about the weapons allegedly recovered from the primary suspect, to which he replied that there was a separate FIR filed on that.

The prosecution lawyers replied that Armaghan was presented before an ATC on February 10 for a month’s physical remand in three cases but the court denied the request.

The remand application filed by the police before the ATC was then read out aloud.

The prosecution further claimed to have recovered a mobile phone belonging to Amir from Armaghan. It added that as per police records, the main suspect already had “five cases registered against him” in the past.

One of the cases, which pertained to extortion, was registered at the Boat Basin police station and Armaghan was wanted in it, a prosecutor said.

At one point, the court asked whether the ATC had denied the police request for Armaghan’s physical remand “due to some reason”. Upon the lawyer responding that there was “no reason”, the court asked: “Was the remand not granted due to torture? What torture was done [to Armaghan]?”

“They tortured me,” Armaghan alleged before the bench, at which Justice Rajput directed that his body be checked for any signs of torture but no such signs were found upon his shirt being lifted.

“They tortured me on the lower part of the body,” the main suspect then claimed.

At this, the court asked Armaghan whether he had complained about the alleged torture to jail officials after being handed into judicial custody. “I was shocked,” the suspect replied.

APG Awan then stated that the ATC had ordered a joint investigation team (JIT) to be formed, adding that blood samples taken from the Armaghan’s residence matched those of Amir’s mother.