Daily Times

Karachi: Fuming at the authorities concerned for failing to produce the case files of three suspected facilitators of the Safoora Goth carnage in court, the Sindh High Court gave them a last chance to obey its orders.

Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who headed a division bench, warned the authorities to obtain the case files from a military court and submit in the court on the next hearing or it would order their release on bail.

The hearing was put off till Dec 29.

The court was hearing the petitions filed the relatives of three suspects – former Fishermen Cooperative Society deputy director Sultan Qamar Siddiqui and his younger brother Hussain Umar Siddiqui and Naeem Sajid – against the jail authorities for not releasing them despite having been acquitted by the military court.

At the outset, the chief justice was visibly irked when he was informed that the case files were not obtained from the military court yet and reprimanded to IG Prison Nusrat Mangan, prosecutor general Shahadat Awan, additional attorney general Salman Talibuddin for failing to comply with the court orders.

The five suspects, including Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin, Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain, Asadur Rehman alias Malik and Mohammad Azhar Ishrat alias Majid, have been condemned to death by the military court.

They had shot dead around 45 members of the Ismaili community in May 2015.

Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, Hussain Umar Siddiqui and Naeem Sajid were arrested for allegedly facilitating the assailants. The suspects were also nominated in a criminal case relating to providing weapons to the assailants.

The families of the two brothers and another suspect approached the court, submitting that five accused had been convicted and their custody was handed over to the central prison. However, the court had acquitted their relatives in the case and despite their acquittal they were not handed to the prison or released.

They said that they were not longer required by the military court since it had already concluded the trial. The court was pleaded to order the authorities to release the suspects.

The jail authorities had earlier informed the judges that the custody of the suspect was handed over to them, however, the case files were not transferred to the relevant anti-terrorism court for appropriate orders.