ATC orders action against IO over ‘negligence, indifferent attitude towards investigation’

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) has acquitted an accused in a kidnapping for ransom case for lack of evidence. Shehbaz Ismail had been charged with kidnapping four-year-old Muhammad Raza from Madina Colony in Block 13/G of Gulshan-e-Iqbal and demanding Rs150,000 ransom for his release in 2019.

The ATC-V judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, ruled that the prosecution "miserably failed to prove its case against the accused beyond shadow of reasonable doubt".

He noted that co-accused Rizwan had surrendered before the ATC-III before the case was transferred to this court and joined investigation but was let off by the investigating officer. Highlighting flaws in police investigation, the judge said that IO Nisar Awan did not record statements of the abducted child, his aunt who had seen the entire scene of the abduction and her daughter who was with him at that time. He added that their testimonies were very important but the IO didn't made efforts to incorporate their statements in his investigation nor did he produce them before the court, which had adverse effect on the prosecution story.

He said that as per the prosecution story, the alleged incident took place on September 9, 2019 but the IO visited the place of the incident on September 15 and prepared a site inspection memo in the presence of witnesses -- a fact contradicted by witness Muhammad Saleem, who stated that the IO prepared the memo at the police station. He noted that the memo was prepared with a delay of six days and no explanation was brought on record by the prosecution.

"Though, he was busy in conducting investigation of instant case, but he did not bother to visit place of incident within time and recorded the statement of eyewitnesses, who had seen the alleged incident with their own eyes," said the judge.

He further noted that the CDR placed on record had no signature of an authorised officer of the cellular company concerned, nor did IO record the statement of the representative of the company.

"Thus, it cannot be safely relied upon the CDR produced by the prosecution, therefore, it can be possible that the investigating officer himself generated such CDR, which creates doubt upon the prosecution story," he added.

The court further observed that as per the complainant, he received calls for payment of Rs150,000 ransom but no ransom was paid and although the CDR indicated that the complainant had received calls from the culprits, but the said number/SIM was not recovered from the accused at the time of his arrest. Neither mobile phone from which calls were made to the complainant were recovered nor recording of any ransom demand was produced during the trial, it said.

It said the IO did not record statements of independent witnesses at the time of recovery of abductee Muhammad Raza and arrest of accused Shahbaz. Noting that although it has power to initiate trial against police officers for defective investigation under Section 27 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, the court ordered a copy of the written judgement to be sent to the Sindh police chief to take action against the IO of the case over "his negligence and indifferent attitude towards investigation". On the other hand, the accused claimed to be innocent stating that he had falsely been implicated by the complainant due to enmity.