A second suspect linked to the murder of Karachi college student Zafir Ahmed Zuberi near the city's Do Darya area earlier this month was identified by three witnesses in court on Thursday.
The
witnesses, who appeared in the court of a judicial magistrate today,
were able to identify two suspects out of the five people in the
identification parade ─ Khawar Burney, the main accused, and Abdul
Rehman, one of the 10 absconding suspects in the case.
Once
of the witnesses who identified Rehman told the court that he is a
friend of Dr Abdul Raheem, the motorcyclist who was hit by the victim's
car.
The eyewitnesses also placed Rehman at the site of the shooting and said that he had broken the windows of the victim's car.
The
remaining three in the identification parade, Hasan Hussain Burney,
Haider Hussain Burney and Raza Hussain Burney were not identified by the
witnesses.
The Investigation Officer (IO) has, however,
named the three as co-accused in the case, along with Hasnain Hussain
Burney, Haris Hussain Burney, Danish, Hammad, Noman, Umar Pirwani; and a
woman, Mehak. The others all currently absconding.
The IO told the court that some of the ammunition used in the shooting belonged to Rehman.
Zafir and his friend Zaid were on their way to have breakfast at the
beach on Dec 3 when they had a minor accident with Dr Abdul Raheem's
motorbike.
After the accident, suspects travelling in a
double-cabin vehicle had chased them and opened indiscriminate fire on
the youths' Mercedes in what seemed to be an act of vengeance around 9am
on Abdul Sattar Edhi Avenue, police said.
As a result,
the two passengers sustained bullet wounds and were transported to a
private hospital where doctors pronounced Zafir, 18, dead, and Zaid
received treatment for a bullet wound.
A case was
registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempted
murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the
complaint of the deceased’s father, Fahim Ahmed Zuberi, at the Sahil
Police Station.
The IO requested judicial magistrate, who
had on Dec 12 remanded Khawar Burney to police custody in jail, to
extend his physical remand. The judicial magistrate, however, rejected
the IO's request.
Subsequently, the IO approached the
sessions judge south requesting physical remand of Khawar Burney. He
told the judge that police had not completed their investigation
regarding the prime suspect, and said that the police would be able to
arrest the absconding suspects with his help.
The sessions judge then ordered Khawar Burney be sent on physical remand for two more days.
‘History of violence’
Investigators have also stated that Khawar Hussain Burney, the main suspect in the case who was remanded in police custody on Dec 6, has a history of "violence and interest in arms" and strongly suspect his involvement in a similar incident sometime back.
SSP South Javed Akbar Riaz had told Dawn that the suspect had told police that following Dr Raheem's accident, he and his friends thought that their colleague had died.
He
had quoted the suspect as saying that they chased Zafir and Zaid and
their vehicles had hit each other during the chase, but the victims had
not stopped.
The suspects had said that they then
continued their chase and opened fire on the tyres of the victims' cars,
but the indiscriminate firing resulted in the tragedy.
The
accused had claimed that he was in a "fit of rage and became hyper"
since he thought the motorcyclist had been killed in the accident. He
gave this as his reason for shooting one of the victims dead and
injuring another.
