KARACHI: Karachi police chief, in a joint press conference with Sindh Information Minister Nasir Hussain Shah on Monday claimed to have arrested another suspected hit-man belonging to a political party for his alleged involvement in almost ten-year-old murder case of a Geo TV reporter Wali Khan Babar.
The journalist Babar, aged 28, was shot dead in the Liaquatabad neighbourhood of Karachi while driving home from office in the limits of the Super Market police station on January 13, 2011. The murder case was lodged the same day.
“Kamran alias Zeeshan Shani is the main shooter, who had opened fire on Babar, that’s why he was given death penalty by the ATC. He was arrested during a joint operation,” says Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon. “Kamran was still at large and kept changing his hideouts and finally this morning, on the intelligence-based tipoff by a federal agency, our special investigation unit apprehended him with weapons.”
Additional IG Karachi while sharing more details about the arrested suspect said that the suspect arrested used to live in several areas for five years and then shifted to Gulshan-e-Maymar area, where he was living with his family.
Police had arrested five suspects – Faisal Mehmood alias Nafsiyati, Naveed alias Polka, Muhammad Ali Rizvi, Shahrukh alias Manni and Shakil Malik – in the city on April 7, 2011.
He further said that both Kamran alias Shani and Faisal Mota were involved in the murder so they received death sentences, added that the culprit has informed them about four murder cases so far and they will seek more information from him.
The police official said that the case gained much highlight, as Babar was a crime reporter of Geo News and quite active in the field. Initially, there were eight accused and among them was one identified as Liaquat Ali, who was killed in an encounter and could not be tried under the law. Memon said that several witnesses were murdered, including Rajab Bengali, who was killed in 2011. He gave example of another ‘star’ witness Haider Ali, on whose testimony the conviction took place. Ali was murdered in 2012. According to the confession of Zeeshan, the police chief said MQM-London South Africa chapter was involved in the murder of slain journalist. “Wali Babar was killed because he was considered close to the Awami National Party (ANP) and would report anti-Altaf Hussain stories,” he added. The suspect arrested had joined the MQM (London) in 2008 and became part of Faisal alias Mota’s target killing team. Addressing media, PPP minister Nasir Hussain Shah said that the ruling party in the province believes in freedom of speech. “The government is taking action against the injustice that took place with journalists, no matter how old a case is,”; the minister said. “Journalist Aziz Memon’s murder case was solved and the people were arrested. I appreciate Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon, who solved the case and worked on this one as well.”
An anti-terrorism court in Karachi had awarded four men life imprisonment in the murder case and two others, Faisal alias Mota and Kamran alias Shani, were given death sentences in absentia in 2014. Faisal alias Mota was arrested from Nine Zero, the headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in March 2015, while Kamran alias Zeeshani Shani was on the run.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “Babar was shot shortly after his story on gang violence aired on the country’s most widely watched broadcaster, Geo TV.”
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