KESC | Pakistan

An anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Tuesday acquitted two Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) workers facing charges of involvement in the 1997 murder case of former Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) managing director Shahid Hamid. The two accused — Mohammad Minhaj Qazi alias Asad, and Mehboob Ghufran alias Athar — along with their alleged accomplices, had been charged with the killing of the then-managing director of the KESC, his driver and a guard in Karachi’s DHA neighbourhood on July 5, 1997. An ATC had already sentenced Saulat Mirza to death in 1999 in this case and he was executed in Balochistan’s Machh jail in 2015. During the proceedings held at Karachi jail today, the court acquitted Qazi and Ghufran for lack of evidence and ordered their release, if they were not nominated in any pending case. Defence counsel Advocate Mushtaq Ahmed contended before the court that Qazi had no connection with the case. He said that according to the first information report, the complainant had only seen Mirza o...