An anti-terrorism court on Thursday acquitted all six personnel of Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) who had allegedly killed four persons including a woman and her daughter in an encounter in Sahiwal. The court extending benefit of doubt ruled that the accused persons are acquitted.
The suspects included Safdar Hussain, Ahsan Khan, Muhammad Ramzan, Saifullah, Hasnain Akbar and Nasir Nawaz. Muhammad Khalil, his wife Nabeela, and their four children were travelling in a car with Zeeshan driver when the personnel of the CTD intercepted the vehicle and opened fire on the passengers suspecting them terrorists. The CTD officials later claimed that they had information that Zeeshan had links with a terrorist outfit.
Three minor Umair, Jazba and Muneeba survived the attack with minor injuries. Yousafwala police on January 19, 2019, had registered the FIR on the complaint of deceased's brother Muhammad Jalil under sections 302, 324, 337 (F1, F-A1 & F3), 201 of Pakistan Penal Code and section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.
Initially, the trial was conducted in Sahiwal, however, the Lahore High Court on June 17 allowing an application of the complainant had shifted the proceedings to Lahore. The court ruled, "The prosecution has failed to prove the case against the accused persons and there is no cavil to the preposition that court has not to take into consideration heinousness or gruesome nature of the occurrence while dispensing justice and the court has to see the evidence available on record because heaven may fall but justice should must be done".
"All the private witnesses in response to cross-examination conducted by defence counsel maintained that they have no objection if the accused persons are acquitted from this case," the court wrote in his verdict. The complainant also admitted that the FIR was not chalked out on his instruction or on his application rather a fictitious application was attributed to him.
Umair, the injured witness, was also examined after conducting an inquiry of his competency to depose in the case and he also did not involve any of the suspects in his cross-examination and said that he has no objection if the suspects were acquitted. Two minor witnesses namely Hadia and Muneeba were also presented by the prosecution but the trial court reached at a conclusion that they were not competent to depose due to their tender age.
Therefore, the court ruled that no ocular account was available to connect the suspects with the commission of the offence. Deciding the medical evidence, the court observed there was no cavil to the preposition that postmortem reports and the medico legal reports only established that deceased persons and injured received injuries, kind of weapons, seat of injuries, probable time between injuries and medical examination and the weapon used. However, the court noted that the medical account did not furnish the details of the assailants.
Referring to a LHC judgment, the trial court observed that medical evidence was a supportive piece of evidence and it was relevant only if primary evidence inspired confidence. The court further ruled that none of the witnesses attended identification parade so adverse inference could be drawn from the conduct of the witnesses either they were intentionally avoided to participate or they did not want to identify the suspects.
"So the identification parade is also not helpful to the case of the prosecution," said the ruling. The Deputy Prosecutor General argued during the trial that empties procured from the crime scene matched with the weapons of the offence issued to two of the suspects. However, the court observed that since it had already disbelieved the ocular account and reached at a conclusion that recoveries of weapons in this case were not worthy of credence on account of non-recovery of the same from immediate possession of the suspects.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019