Sahiwal Killings: Court Acquits All Suspects

(@fidahassanain)

Sahiwal Killings: Court acquits all suspects

The court ordered their acquittal by giving them benefit of doubt.

LAHORE: (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-24th Oct, 2019) An Anti-Terrorism Court on Thursday acquitted all accused involved in Sahiwal killings where four persons including a suspected terrorist Zeeshan was killed in broad day light, giving beneift of doubt to the suspects in the case.

The accused who have been set free included Safdar Hussain, Ahsan Khan, Ramzan, Saifullah, Hussain and Nasir Nawaz. All the accused who were set free are said to be the officials of Counter Terrorism Department (CTD).

In Sahiwal killings, husband and wife were killed along with their 13-year old daughter when they were going to Burewala to take part in wedding through the car of a suspected terrorist Zeeshan when CTD officials followed the car, killed four persons including Khalil, Nabila and their 13-year old daughter Areeba and suspected terrorist. However, Omair, Muniba and Hadia, all three children, were not hurt by the police and were left in a deserted area from where a man took them to a filliing station on GT road.

The court recorded statements of 49 witnesses including the statement of Ehtisham, the brother of terrorist Zeeshan, and ordered acquittal of all accused by giving them benefit of doubt as the prosecution could not come up with solid evidence against them to prove them guilty.

The CTD initially claimed that the operation was carried out on the basis of information regarding the presence of suspected terrorists but the eye witnesses said that the family members were shot dead in cold blood by the CTD personnel and that no weapon was recovered from the vehicle after the alleged shootout.

The Punjab government, through a notification, announced the formation of a joint investigation team (JIT) to probe the incident.

It may be mentioned here that the incident came to the limelight when a video about killing of innocent family members went viral on social media.

Omair, the elder child of the deceased family, said that the police took them out from the car and opened indscriminate firing on his father, mother and sister. The Forensic report proved that the firing was done by CTD officials which resulted in murder of innocent family.

Fida Hussnain

Fida Hussnain is a lahore based journalist. He writes on politics, religion, social issues and climate change. He is also a research fellow at University of Gujrat.