Witness says CTD forced him to testify against two Jaish suspects

The nazim of an ‘illegal’ mosque and a seminary established by Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) in Sujrani Town deposed before an anti-terrorism court on Wednesday that police forced him to give a false statement against the two interned defendants.

On July 16, the ATC-XII had sent Muhammad bin Shehzad and Rehan Ahmed to jail in judicial custody, dismissing their bail-before-arrest applications, on charges of raising funds for the banned militant organisation. Muhammad Khawar, the nazim of Masjid Al-Fatah and Ashab-al-Sufah Madarsa, told the ATC judge that he had never given evidence against Shehzad and Ahmed, and that his statement under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code had been made up by Counter Terrorism Department inspector Tariq Qayyum.

According to the prosecution, the mosque and the seminary, located in Sector 5-D of Surjani Town, were run by the Jaish-e-Muhammad’s sister organisation, Al Rehmat Trust, to raise funds and induct manpower for their terrorist activities. The charge sheet read that on the pretext of running a madrasa, the banned outfit brainwashed children and their families into joining its terrorists operations, and also procured funds for this purpose.

The investigators found that the 1,400-square-yards plot with an estimated worth of Rs50 million, on which the mosque and the madrasa was built, had been allocated for a park in the master plan and had been illegally acquired by the banned outfit.

At a previous hearing, the Karachi Development Authority had told the court that the plot had been neither allotted to anybody nor demarcated, but it had been encroached and a structure built on it illegally.

The case has been registered under Section 11-N (Punishment under sections 11H to 11K) of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The sub-sections H, I, J and K pertain to fund- raising, use and possession, funding arrangements and money laundering. The court has so far heard the testimonies of three prosecution witnesses.