Notorious ‘encounter specialist’ and former police inspector Abid Boxer is yet to be extradited to Pakistan, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)’s director Interpol told the Lahore High Court (LHC).
Justice Anwarul Haq was hearing a petition seeking the protection of Abid Hussain, alias Abid Boxer, who had been arrested last month in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in connection with a fraud case.
The petition expressed apprehension that the police in Pakistan would kill Boxer in a fake encounter, adding that a number of fabricated cases had been registered against his son-in-law solely on the basis of political victimisation.
Although local media had reported in February that Hussain had been brought back to Pakistan with the help of Interpol, the FIA’s director reiterated the Interior Ministry claim that no agency had brought Abid Boxer back to Pakistan.
Abid Hussain had joined the police department in 1988 as an assistant sub-inspector. He was later promoted to the rank of inspector. He fled Pakistan in 2008 after the police lodged cases against him under murder, attempted murder, fraud and forgery charges.
The murder case that forced Hussain to flee Pakistan was lodged against him at Qila Gujjar Singh police station after the death of a retired army brigadier, Naseem Ashraf. Ashraf’s wife had lodged the case accusing the former inspector of killing her husband. She alleged that Hussain wanted to grab a cinema owned by the retired brigadier in 2008.
The complainant later died under mysterious circumstances and it was suspected that she too was killed at the behest of Boxer.
Recently, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan alleged that the former inspector had confessed to killing people on the instructions of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
“Police never kill people until and unless a chief minister orders or grants permission to kill people,” he had quoted Abid as saying. “Abid Boxer fled to Dubai as Shahbaz Sharif wanted to kill him because he could expose the chief minister,” Khan alleged.
