From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Syed Ali Haider Zaidi on Tuesday has revealed that Sindh government tampered with Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report on Lyari gangwar leader Uzair Baloch to exclude certain names.
Addressing a press conference with Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz, Ali Zaidi claimed the report that was made public by the provincial government is different from the one provided to him.
The document which I am having is signed by officers of IB, ISI and other high-level officials. It mentions during investigation, Uzair Baloch had disclosed that Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Abdul Qadir Patel tasked him to kill Razzaq Commando. However, the report presented by Sindh government omits all this details, he added.
Ali Zaidi also criticised the report for not covering key information like “why Uzair Baloch committed the murders, on whose orders and who benefited from them”.Uzair Baloch’s gang used to behead rival gangsters and throw away their heads. This is not made-up or a story from Mexico, this was happening within Karachi, he went on to say.
An anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Tuesday indicted Uzair Baloch, the kingpin of the infamous criminal gang in Lyari, in a case related to the kidnapping and murder of a trader.
Hearing the case at Central Jail, Karachi, the ATC judge framed charges against the accused who denied having any role in the abduction and murder of Abdul Samad and opted to contest the charges. The jail authorities produced him in the courtroom with his head covered and both hands cuffed amid tight security.
The court issued notices to the investigation officer and witnesses to turn up at next hearing for deposition.
According to the charge-sheet, the trader was taken captive by Uzair and his accomplices who demanded Rs1 million as protection money for his release. They murdered the abductee despite payment of Rs70,000. Uzair Baloch’s brother Zubair Baloch has also been behind bars in the case. The spokesperson of Sindh government, Murtaza Wahab, has said that the promise to publicise ‘verified’ Joint Investigation Team (JIT) reports over judicial orders was fulfilled, ARY News reported on Tuesday.
Murtaza Wahab claimed that the federal minister Ali Zaidi has recently conducted a press conference where he only talked about the speculations being made on social media platforms. He said that all government documents would have contained signatures and stamps, whereas, nobody could claim for having a JIT report with only four signatures.
He said that there were seven members in a JIT who would sign on a final report. It was the authority of the government to constitute a JIT and its report will be signed by its head first. The head of a JIT would submit the report to the Ministry of Interior, he added.
