Shahzeb murder case: SC sets aside SHC ruling

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday issued orders of re-arrest of the main accused Shahrukh Jatoi, Sajjad Talpur and Siraj Talpur in the Shahzeb murder case.

A three-member SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, and comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa and Justice Maqbool Baqir, heard the petitions filed by members of civil society against the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) ruling. The SHC had set aside the death penalty for Shahrukh Jatoi and others convicted for the 2012 murder of Shahzeb and ordered their retrial by a sessions court.

The court, after exercising its jurisdiction under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, converted the instant petitions into suo motu, ordered re-arrest of the main accused. Soon after the court announced the verdict, the Islamabad Police took the accused into custody from the courtroom and later they would be handed over to Sindh Police.

The court also directed for placing the names of the accused persons on Exit Control list (ECL) so that they could not flee the country. Similarly, the court while declaring the verdict of SHC, removing anti-terrorism charges in the case as void, remanded the case again to the high court with the direction to constitute a new bench and decide the case on merits within two months.

The bench wondered how SHC discarded the Supreme Court 2013 decision that had ruled that the case against Shahrukh Jatoi and accused should be conducted before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC). Sardar Latif Khosa and Farooq H Naek, counsel for the accused persons, argued before the court.

Ten civil society activists – including Jibran Nasir, Jamshed Raza Mahmood, Afiya Shehrbano Zia, Naeem Sadiq, Nazim Fida Hussain Haji, Zulfiqar Shah, Aquila Ismail, Fahim Zaman Khan, and Naziha Syed Ali – had filed a criminal petition in the Supreme Court's Karachi Registry challenging the SHC’s Nov 28, 2017 ruling which stated that the murder case does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

In their petition, the civil society members stated that they have the legal standing to file the petition for leave to appeal as they are citizens of Karachi and reside in the same locality – Defence Housing Authority – where the murder took place.

They stated in the petition that the incident was not just of an individual nature, but carried serious repercussions for the society at large. On December 23, 2017, Jatoi, the son of an influential feudal, and other defendants in the Shahzeb Khan murder case, were released from custody on bail after Shahzeb’s father submitted an affidavit in support of the defendant's bail application.

Shahzeb was gunned down by Jatoi in a posh locality of Karachi on Dec 25, 2012. An ATC in 2013 had awarded death sentences to Jatoi and Siraj Talpur for the murder of Shahzeb, while life sentences were awarded to Sajjad Ali Talpur and Ghulam Murtaza Lashari.