Karachi: Declining the Sindh government request to nominate a sitting judge to head the judicial inquiry into the murder of a 19-year old Intizar Ahmed, the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Saturday observed that the Sessions Judge could be approached in this regard.
In its response to home department’s letter seeking that the judicial inquiry into the murder of Intezar, who was shot dead by Anti Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) personnel on January 14, be headed by a high court judge, the SHC said that a Sessions Judge was fully authorized to conduct the inquiry into the same offence.
“As per policy made in 2005, the Sessions Judge can carry out the judicial inquiry or nominate the Additional Sessions Judge for this purpose,” the reply added. The high court asked the home department to approach the relevant Sessions Judge in this regard.
The Sindh government had written a letter to SHC registrar and asked him to appoint a sitting judge to conduct judicial inquiry into alleged extra-judicial killing after the victim’s father demanded of Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah justice for his slain son.
Seven ACLC personnel, including Inspector Azhar Ahsan Rizvi, head constable Ghulam Abbas, head constable Shahid, constable Fawwad Khan, were currently on physical remand for questioning.
Following Intezar’s killing, the provincial police chief AD Khawaja had removed ACLC Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Muqaddas Haider from his post and appointed Syed Asad Raza who was serving as Administration AIG at Central Police Office (CPO). Besides, the IG had also removed DSPs Mohammad Akram Mughal and Abdul Ghaffar Jumani and directed them to report to the CPO.
Intizar was shot dead by the ACLC personnel on Jan 14 when he was reportedly driving his white corolla car and did not ‘stop’ despite signalled by the personnel at Khayaban-e-Ittehad in Defence Housing Authority. Initially, the police termed the youth’s murder as target killing but later it was revealed that he was shot dead by ACLC personnel.