Verdict reserved in Parveen Rehman murder case

KARACHI: Anti-Terrorism Court-VII (ATC-VII) on Friday reserved its verdict in the murder trial of famous social worker and former director of the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), Parveen Rehman.

After the counsel for the complainant and the defence concluded their final arguments, the judge announced that he would issue the verdict on October 28.

Rehman was killed by assailants while she was on her way home from her office near the Banaras flyover on March 13, 2013.

Later Abdul Rahim Swati, his son Mohammad Imran Swati and Ayaz Shamzai, Amjad Hussain Khan and Ahmed Khan aka Ahmed Ali aka Pappu Kashmiri were charged with the murder of the 55-year-old activist.

The counsel for the complainant submitted in his final arguments that Swati, in his confessional statement to then SSP Akhtar Farooqui, had disclosed that Awami National Party leaders had allegedly hired Taliban militants to kill Rahman.

According to the statement, the counsel argued that Shamzai and Swati were leaders of the ANP, and living near the OPP office. They tried to obtain an area to build a karate centre, but Rahman had refused to allow it, he added.

The counsel apprised the court that Rehman’s murder was planned in a meeting at Swati’s residence, which was located opposite to OPP office.

The lawyer contended that in an interview to a foreign radio service two years before her murder, Rahman had called Rahim Swati a “land grabber and extortionist”. He added that the activist had stated that Swati wanted to illegally occupy the land where OPP’s office is built.

He had argued that Rahman’s interview corroborated the confessional statement of Swati.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and others had approached the Supreme Court for an impartial re-investigation and fair trial of the case. They had argued that the investigation conducted so far had failed to identify the mastermind behind the targeted killing.  

Since after her murder, several investigation teams were constituted to probe the matter. Even a judicial inquiry was conducted by a Karachi district and sessions judge but it had failed to make any progress.

The apex court, after conducting 40 hearings in more than six years in January 2021, disposed of the petition.

During the hearing of the petition, two years ago, the petitioners had requested the top court to form a joint investigation team (JIT) of officials of federal agencies. The court accepted the plea and formed the JIT.

The two JITs and judicial officers in their investigation had noted that the involvement of land grabbers in the murder case could not be ruled out.

While disposing of the case, the apex court had directed the Sindh police to file two JITs, one headed by SSP Omer Shahid Hamid and the other by FIA Director Babur Bakht Qureshi, in the anti-terrorism court.