KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Karachi Monday acquitted Rao Anwar Ahmed, former senior superintendent of police (SSP) in Malir, and 16 other suspects in the highly publicised murder of young Naqeebullah Mehsud.
The verdict, which was previously reserved on January 14, took the court five years to conclude.
The killing of Mehsud, 27, a garment trader and an aspiring model from South Waziristan residing in Karachi, in January 2018 on the outskirts of the provincial metropolis in a police encounter led by Ahmed sparked nationwide peaceful demonstrations about Pashtun rights, from which Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) emerged, and the state’s failure to arrest the suspects.
PTM was founded in January 2018 in protest against alleged extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention and “disappearances” of young Pashtun men. Leaders of the emerging movement have blamed the military for these abuses, without providing sufficient evidence.
Ahmed, along with his team, were charged with the killing of Mehsud and three others after dubbing them militants linked to the “Islamic State and Taliban”.
The court had indicted Ahmed and his team in March 2019 for the killing of four men on the outskirts of Karachi.
In November 2020, the former policeman had recorded his statement, alleging that he had been framed in the case due to departmental rivalry, but failed to name any officer in the police.
The court heard the testimony of 51 witnesses, including medico-legal, forensic, and ballistics experts, nine private witnesses, and police officials produced by the prosecution.
