DHA ‘fake’ encounter: Gizri SHO given more time to file response

A sessions court on Thursday granted the SHO Gizri a week more to submit his response on an application seeking the registration of an FIR against police officials for allegedly killing five suspects in a fake encounter in the Defence Housing Authority.

Police said five robbers belonging to an inter-provincial gang had been killed in an encounter at a bungalow near the Imambargah Yasrab in Phase IV of the DHA on November 27. One of the killed suspects, Abbas, worked as a driver for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s local leader Laila Parveen, who filed an application under Section 22-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, seeking directions for lodging a criminal case against the police officials involved in the encounter.

Parveen claimed that the police took away her driver from her house in the wee hours of the day of the incident and later killed him in a fake encounter. She added that the crime scene had negated the police’s claim of a gunfight as there was no bullet mark on the bungalow.

She said Abbas was an innocent person and had returned from her native village in south Punjab to Karachi less than two weeks ago. She added that soon after the incident, the police washed away the crime scene to destroy evidence against them.

On Thursday, the SHO Gizri police station appeared before the additional district and sessions judge South and sought more time to submit his comments on the application which the court approved and gave him time until December 16.