Daily Times

Punjab government on Wednesday ordered the joint investigation team (JIT) formed to probe Sahiwal incident to present its report to Chief Minister Usman Buzdar till February 19, a private TV channel reported.

A high-level meeting presided over by Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat reviewed progress by the JIT as well as the evidence collected by the probe team so far.

The JIT will also formally inform the Lahore High Court (LHC) regarding the submission of report till February 19.

On January 19, CTD officials had killed four people, including a couple and their teenage daughter, in an alleged encounter in Sahiwal, triggering a national outcry that prompted the government to take the security officials into custody and order an investigation into the incident.

Meanwhile, a TV report claimed that the weapons sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) were not the ones used in the Sahiwal ‘encounter’. According to the report, the machine gun and the pistol the PFSA had received were not the actual weapons used in the tragic incident.

The PFSA sources revealed that the four bullets that hit the police vehicle were from the weapons used by the police officials. The police mobile was sent to the lab in a truck, however at the time of the incident, it was driven away from the crime scene.

On the other hand, the PFSA sources noted that the car driven by Zeeshan was shot at while it was moving as well as it came to a halt. The deceased’s car was hit at point-blank range (1 foot).

More than 100 bullet casings, four submachine guns (SMGs), and two 9mm pistols were sent to the PFSA for forensic testing. The casings, it turned out, were not from the weapons actually used in the alleged encounter.

Published in Daily Times, February 14^th 2019.