Charges framed against cop in fake encounter case

Karachi
A sessions judge on Thursday framed charges against a police officer, ASI Faisal Jaffery, accused of arresting and killing a citizen in a staged encounter in December 2010.
The additional district and sessions judge (South), Abdul Qudoos Memon, issued directives to produce witnesses against the accused after he denied all the allegations on him.
The court also ordered to start proceedings in the case from next hearing.
The accused is alleged to kill a citizen, Muhammad Ali Butt, in the Ferozabad police limits in December 2010.
The officer later claimed that Butt had been killed in a police encounter, calling him an outlaw.
Later, the ASI disappeared and was declared a proclaimed offender. The police finally arrested him in July 2015 after a trader, Amanullah, was kidnapped and the fugitive ASI was apprehended as a suspect.
In April 2011, Judicial Magistrate (South) Nadeem Badar Qazi, while rejecting a police report, had issued warrants for the arrest of all suspects in the encounter case.
ASI Faisal Jaffery, head constables Shafiq Anjum and Ijaz Ahmed and constables Noormaz Khan, Mazhar Hussain and Abdul Latif of the Ferozabad police station were booked for allegedly kidnapping Mohammad Ali Butt within the limits of the Baloch Colony police station and killing him in a fake encounter.
Investigation officer of the case, DSP Chaudhry Mohammad Akthar, had submitted a report under Section 173 of the CrPC in the court of a judicial magistrate in class-B, stating that he had recorded the statements of witnesses and all the suspects had joined the investigation. He told to the court nothing was found against the suspects to link them with the alleged offence, claiming that the complainant lodged a fake case against the policemen. The court issued notice to the plaintiff, who appeared in the court and submitted some medical documents, claiming that it was not an encounter as the bullets were fired from a very close range. The judicial magistrate rejected the class-B report and treated it as a charge-sheet.
The court then issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of all the suspects and directed the investigation officer to produce them in the court on the next hearing. The key accused later had run away and was recently arrested in a kidnapping case.
A case against Faisal Jaffery and others was registered under the FIR No.10/2011 under Sections 365, 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the father of deceased in January 2015.
Calling it a sensitive case, the session court has ruled that the investigation should be carried out by the police officers not below the rank of DSP under the supervision of SSP investigation himself.