In a recent development, a call data record (CDR) expert testified before anti-terrorism court (ATC) confirming that former SSP Malir Rao Anwar wasn’t present at the crime scene in Naqeebullah Mehsud Killing case.
The CDR expert’s testimony apparently acquits former Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Malir Rao Anwar who has been indicted in extrajudicial/fake encounter killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud.
During the hearing, three CDR experts along with Inspector Hanif appeared before the court and testified in the case. The accused former SSP Rao Anwar, DSP Qamar were also present in the court.
In his testimony before the court, a CDR expert revealed that as per the geo-fencing data, Rao Anwar along with nine other accused officials were not present at the crime scene at the time which the incident took place.
CDR expert noted that the fake encounter took place around 3:00 – 3:20 pm, and that the CDR data showcase the accused arriving at the scene after that.
SSP Rao Anwar along with DSP Qamar arrived at the scene at 3:30 pm, he added.
The court has summoned more witnesses in the case which in-fact has been adjourned till December 7th.
Naqeebullah Mehsud Case
Naqeebullah Mehsud was killed on January 13, 2018, in Karachi, Pakistan, during a fake encounter. On January 3, Naqeebullah was kidnapped along with two of his friends, Hazrat Ali and Mohammed Qasim, by Rao Anwar’s men in plainclothes from Gul Sher Agha Hotel in Sohrab Goth, Karachi.
On January 6, both of his friends were freed by the police, but Naqeebullah was kept in captivity, tortured, and then killed on January 13 in a fake encounter in which he was shot twice in the back.
Alongside Naqeebullah, three other men namely Muhammad Sabir and Muhammad Ishaq from Bahawalpur and Nazar Jan Mehsud from South Waziristan were also killed by the police in the staged encounter, the latter of whom was shot from a close range.
On January 17, Naqeebullah’s dead body was handed over to his relatives in Karachi. On January 18, his body was taken by his relatives to Tank, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Islamic funeral prayer was performed for him, and on the same day, he was buried at his hometown Makin, South Waziristan. The fake encounter sparked countrywide protests against extrajudicial killings in Pakistan.
Referring to the killings, the police alleged that they killed four suspected terrorists in a shootout. Rao Anwar claimed that Naqeebullah had links with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh). However, the claims were contested by Naqeebullah’s relatives and human rights activists.
An inquiry committee consisting of senior police officers was formed to investigate the killing, which found Naqeebullah to be innocent, and declared that the alleged police encounter staged to kill him and three others was fake.
The inquiry committee of senior police officers probing the case found no sign of an exchange of gunfire at the site of the alleged police encounter, which was an abandoned poultry farm.
Although the police officers who had taken part in the alleged shootout claimed that militants were hiding inside the poultry farm who attacked them when the police encircled the hideout, the inquiry committee found out that there was no gunfire from inside the poultry farm during the incident.
Some marks of firing were found in a room and on walls of the poultry farm, which the inquiry team declared to be post-incident fabrications by the police team.
