Judge orders statements of suspects, servants be recorded today

A judicial magistrate on Wednesday issued notices to the defence side on an application filed by the investigating officer to record statements of two servants of prime suspect Armaghan in the Mustafa Amir kidnap and murder case.

The IO produced Armaghan and Sheraz before Judicial Magistrate (South) Asim Aslam to record statements of Ghulam Mustafa and Mohammad Zohaib under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the presence of both the suspects.

However, their statements could not be recorded as Armaghan, who has not engaged any lawyer, complained to the court that he had not received any notice on the application as required under the law.

Sheraz’s lawyer Khurram Abbas Awan also informed the magistrate that he had also not been issued a notice nor was a copy of the application provided to him. The magistrate expressed displeasure over the investigating officer for failing to serve notices on the defence side. The magistrate ordered repeating notices and directed the IO to present the suspects as well as two servants for statements today.

According to the IO, Mustafa and Zohaib were present at the crime scene and had removed bloodstains. Meanwhile, a special court for the Control of Narcotic Substances (CNS) issued a production order for Armaghan in two identical drug smuggling cases. Armaghan has been charged with smuggling marijuana into the country from Canada via postal service. Investigating officer Masood Ahmed appeared before the special CNS court-II judge and submitted a compliance report, informing that the accused had been arrested in four cases pertaining to the Mustafa Amir murder case, encounter with police and recovery of illicit arms.

Taking the report on record, the judge issued a production order for appearance of the accused through video link on March 18. Earlier, the court had issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Armaghan over no-show as he was out on bail. In April 2019, the two FIRs were registered against the accused on behalf of the state through customs officials.

On April 30, 2019, a parcel shipped from Canada in Armaghan’s name was intercepted, and its examination led to the recovery of greenish leaves, said to be marijuana. Upon weighing, the parcel was found to contain 125 grams of marijuana, which was “cleverly packed in one pouch of silver color aluminum foil and one pouch of polythene kept in one cardboard envelop total weighing 262 grams”. The value of the seized narcotics was estimated at Rs177,187.

Prior to this, a parcel containing 500 grams of marijuana worth about Rs708,750 was seized on April 12. A probe reveald that accused Armgahan had imported the consignment in the name of his father Kamran Asghar Qureshi. Before this seizure, a total of nine parcels were imported from Canada by Armaghan in his name as well as that of his father Kamran from July 2017 to March 9, 2019.