'Benefit of doubt': Court acquits all suspects in Sahiwal encounter case

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Thursday acquitted all the suspects in the Sahiwal encounter case, ARY News reported.

ATC-I Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta court announced the verdict after the suspects’ lawyers completed a cross-questioning of the testimonies of witnesses.

Six accused namely, Safdar, Ahsan, Saifullah, Husnain and Nasir were acquitted due to lack of evidence giving them the benefit of doubt.

During hearings of the case, the court had recorded statements of 49 witnesses, including close relatives of a victim Zeeshan and another victim Mohammad Khalil.

The Sahiwal tragedy

In January, four people, including two women, were killed in a shady encounter involving the Punjab police’s counter-terrorism department (CTD) on a highway in the Qadirabad area of Sahiwal district on Saturday noon.

The CTD officials maintained that a car was signaled to stop along with a bike near Sahiwal Toll Plaza but the alleged terrorists resorted to firing, adding that three terrorists were able to flee away. “This incident was a continuity of the Jan 16 operation carried out in Faisalabad.”

The victims were identified as grocery store owner Mohammad Khalil, his wife Nabila, their 13-year-old daughter Areeba and their friend who was driving the car, Zeeshan Javed. Their son Umair Khalil sustained bullet wounds while his sister Muniba’s hand also sustained gunshot-related injuries and Hadiba, their younger sister remained unhurt.

The police first claimed that they were kidnappers who were kidnapping the children, they told the story to people at a petrol pump where they left the children of the victims. After video of the Khalil’s son surfaced where he claimed that the deceased in the encounter were his parents.

https://arynews.tv/en/sahiwal-police-kills-four-people-including-two-women/