Daily Times

LAHORE: The federal and provincial law enforcement agencies informed the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday that former cop notorious for extrajudicial killings, Abid Boxer, was not in their custody.

The high court was hearing a petition filed by the father-in-law of the former cop, seeking his formal arrest. The petitioner had pleaded that he feared that the Police Department of the Punjab or the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were holding Boxer without having formally arrested him so that they could kill him in an extrajudicial encounter.

Both the police and the FIA submitted written statements denying having any knowledge of Boxer’s whereabouts.

Justice Anwarul Haq then summoned legal counsel of both respondents to present their arguments in the case at the next hearing on March 8 and adjourned the session.

The infamous former cop was arrested earlier this month by the Interpol from Dubai Airport. He remained on the run for 11 years and is widely believed to have staged various encounters in which political opponents of the regimes of those times were killed.

Earlier, PTI chairman Imran Khan had announced to approach the courts to uncover Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s alleged links with the former police inspector.

The PTI chairman alleged that the former cop had killed people in staged encounters on directions of the Punjab chief minister.

“Boxer has admitted that he killed people in numerous fake encounters at the behest of Shahbaz Sharif,” Khan said, while speaking to the media. He said that in all of his confessional statements, which were on the record, Boxer had claimed that he never killed anyone without consent of Shahbaz Sharif. Khan added that the former cop left the country on learning about Sharif’s alleged plans to have him killed.

Published in Daily Times, March 1^st 2018.