The father of Naqeebullah Mehsud — a Waziristan native killed in a staged encounter in Karachi earlier this year — on Monday moved an application requesting that the case concerning his son’s murder be transferred to another court as he has lost confidence in the ability of Special Judge Anti-Terrorism Court-II Khalida Yaseen to conduct a fair trial.
Naqeeb’s father Mohammad Khan and his lawyers boycotted today’s court proceedings and instead submitted an application complaining that the ATC judge had unduly favoured the prime accused — the powerfurl former SSP Malir, Rao Anwar.
The application stated that the judge repeatedly failed to take action against the undue favours granted to Anwar, who was the only accused in the case brought to court with full protocol and without handcuffs and a prisoner’s uniform.
The application also states that the judge failed to act against the investigating officer in the case when he failed to submit his reports in the case on time.
The complainant’s lawyer alleged that some of the witnesses in the case had also been threatened into retracting their statements, but the judge did not take any action over it.
“We are also very disappointed as it seems that there appears to be collusion between the prosecution and defence because despite our transfer application and despite opposition of his fellow prosecutors, one of the prosecutors proceeded with the bail application,” the lawyer later said in a statement issued to the media.
Meanwhile, Anwar advised the complainant to focus on the case and maintained that no evidence is available against him and the other accused.
Anwar had earlier been found by two separate joint investigation teams (JITs) to have been involved in the staged ‘encounter’ that led to the murder of Naqeeb and three others. One JIT had been formed by the inspector general (IG) of Sindh, and the other by the Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, Anwar’s bail application was accepted last week and the court, in its written order, ruled that he had not been presentt at the scene of the crime.
The judge had written in the order that there was no doubt as per the enquiry report Naqeeb had been killed in a fake encounter. It had also conceded that Naqeebullah, alias Naseebullah, was a ‘liberal man’ and did not have any ‘extremist tendency’.
Naqeeb’s father had also earlier objected to Anwar’s detention at his home in Malir, which which was declared a sub-jail reportedly due to security issues.