Daily DAWN: November 29, 1998

Another suspect in Hakim Said case dies in custody
By Sarfaraz Ahmed

For full picture

KARACHI, Nov 28: Mubashir Ali, who was suspected by police for arranging the travel abroad of two of the suspects in Hakim Said case, died in police custody on Saturday.

He leaves behind two families. A wife and four small children in Karachi, and another wife and four children in Lala Musa, his home town.

This is the second death in custody in Hakim Said's murder case. Fasih Ahmed alias Jugnoo, one of the suspects, died in the custody of CIA police on Oct 23.

The medico-legal office at the JPMC has reserved the cause of death until it receives reports of Mubashir's chemical examination and histopathological tests. A similar procedure was adopted in the case of Fasih Ahmed.

Police claimed that Mubasshir was arrested by Liaquatabad police "from Mehmoodabad" and was taken to his office at Shahrea Faisal, where he died, according to police claim, due to heart failure.

Police claimed that they took the suspect to his recruiting agency office, because during interrogation he had confessed that two of the alleged killers of Hakim Said - Rehan and Masroor Iqbal - had approached him to travel abroad.

Police claimed that Mubashir had the details of those two people at his office, and added that "after needed legal work about the case at Ferozabad police station" Mubashir was taken to his office at Khayam Chambers at Sharea Faisal where he "died due to heart attack".

In a press release issued by the office of SSP East, it was claimed that under Section 176 CrPC an inquiry under the area SDM had been initiated in the matter.

The press release, however, did not give details about the time and date of the arrest, nor details of the raid conducted at Mubashir's house No 159, Sector-B, Galli No.3, Akhtar Colony around 6am on Saturday, as claimed by the deceased's family.

When the Dawn staffers visited the victim's home in Akhtar Colony, it was found ransacked with personal effects scattered all over the place.

A wailing Nazeeran, 28-year-old wife of Mubashir and mother of his four children - three boys (Rifaqat, Waqas and Khurram) and one girl (Aashi)-told Dawn that it had been ransacked by at least 20 policemen, many of whom had entered the house by scaling the walls.

She said during their 20-minute search, they broke open the locks of all the cupboards and trunks in the house. Later they took away Mubashir and two relatives - Mohammad Boota and Pir Siddiqullah - who had recently arrived from the Punjab.

"They turned each and everything upside down. They were searching for something, for which they even opened the Holy Quran," said a grieving Nazeeran, who claimed that her husband had left two women and eight children behind him as his other wife with four children has been living in Mubashir's hometown Lala Musa in Punjab.

Before taking our men with them, she said, police removed jewellry, a fax machine and some other valuables from the house, she said.

"They blind-folded us with our shirts and made us to sit in one of the mobiles and asked Mubashir to sit in a second police mobile," said the relatives Boota and Pir, who, according to them, were freed at Liaquatabad police station at 4.00 in the evening.

They said they were earlier taken to a place near the office of Mubashir where he was brought after 20 minutes from somewhere.

They said Mubashir was taken upstairs to his office and after around 20 minutes he was brought down seemingly unconscious," they said and added that they could still see, though with some difficulty, from behind the cover on their eyes.

They said they over-heard one of the policemen saying to his colleague that perhaps the suspect was an epileptic.

"We did not know where Mubashir was taken from Sharea Faisal until we two were taken to Liaquatabad police station from where we learnt that Mubashir was taken to hospital," they said and added that after some interrogation about Mubashir whether he had been arranging or was involved in helping the killers of Hakim Said travel abroad, the "police set us free."

Mubashir's house, situated on second floor of around 80- square-yard house, was crammed with his relatives and people from the neighbourhood.

According to Nazeeran, her husband had no past history of heart ailment, nor he had suffered any major illness since they married around 12 years ago.

She said her husband had been operating the travel agency along with two other partners for the last three or four years.

According to people who were giving him the bath before funeral, there were no visible marks of torture, but there were two wounds on his feet.

His body was taken to Lala Musa on Saturday night.