The Sindh High Court on Tuesday set aside the judicial remand of Armaghan, the main suspect in the Mustafa Amir murder case, 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 a man named 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 Armaghan’s physical custody and sending him on judicial remand instead.
After issuing notices to the respondents yesterday on those pleas, a two-member bench headed by Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput resumed the hearing today.
Armaghan, as per the bench’s orders yesterday, was presented before the court. 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”.
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 two weeks 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
At the outset of the hearing, APG Iqbal read out an FIR before the court and detailed the developments since Amir’s disappearance chronologically.
The bench inquired about the weapons allegedly recovered from the primary suspect, to which he replied that there was a separate FIR filed on that.
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.
APG Awan reiterated the request for Armaghan’s physical custody, stating that it was needed for further investigation.
Justice Rajput then called IO Ashfaq to the rostrum, who informed the court that he was given no letter by the ATC for Armaghan’s medical examination, but only verbal directives.
Then, the registrar of the ATC denying the physical remand was summoned to the rostrum but a Sindh home ministry official appeared, telling the court that the post was temporarily vacant as the registrar had gone for Umrah.
At one point, Justice Rajput observed, “The entire [ATC] order was typed but JC (judicial custody) was given by applying whito on it. […] Police custody is still written on the order.”
The court then reserved its verdict on the police’s revision pleas. A written verdict issued later today by the bench,
