KARACHI: In a significant development, an anti-terrorism court here on Monday dropped terrorism charges in the high-profile murder case of anchorperson Mureed Abbas and his friend Khizer Hayat.
The court sent the case back to a sessions court to try key suspect Atif Zaman on charges of killing his two business partners in DHA on July 9.
Previously, a sessions court had sent the case to an ATC after the police added Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 to the case.
Zaman through his counsel filed an appeal before the ATC, challenging the decision to incorporate terrorism charges in the case.
Earlier, on Aug 21, the police had submitted a challan of the murder case before the administrative judge of the anti-terrorism court (ATC).
According to the challan, the prime suspect, Atif Zaman had claimed to get a bigger amount of money on the day of the incident and asked his employee, Usama, to return the investment of all persons.
It was stated
that Zaman summoned Mureed Abbas and Umar Rehan at 8:00 pm on the incident’s day and later opened fire on the TV anchor upon his arrival. Umar Rehan suddenly snatched the pistol from Atif Zaman but the suspect and Adil Zaman, brother of Atif Zaman, attacked Rehan to repossess the pistol.However, Umar Rehan managed to flee from the location but followed by both suspects, the challan stated. It was revealed that the suspect Atif Zaman had telephoned Mureed Abbas and Khizer Hayat in front of his driver while his driver admitted that Zaman fired bullets on Hayat while sitting inside his vehicle.
Moreover, the wife of Mureed Abbas, Zaara Abbas, had expressed her suspicion over Atif Zaman before the occurrence of the incident and also presented an audio call recording between her husband and the prime suspect, who is allegedly involved in grabbing a bigger amount of money by various people.
Police investigators included statements of 35 people including eyewitnesses in the challan.
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