Police 'clueless' over Shahzad's
killing By Malik Ayub Sumbal
ISLAMABAD - Islamabad police have not made
any progress investigating the death of Asia
Timers Online Pakistan bureau chief Syed Saleem
Shahzad, a top official from the force has told
Asia Times Online.
The official, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity, said police had
failed to get any video footage that would trace
any culprits and show where Shahzad had been
picked up. Despite strict instructions from the
higher authorities that police trace those
responsible for the death of the 40-year-old
married father of three, the case is complicated
by the involvement of two separate jurisdictions,
he said.
The badly beaten body of Shahzad
was found on May 31 in a canal in Mandi Bahauddin,
about 150 kilometers southeast of
Islamabad, two days after he
went missing on his way from his home to a
television interview in another part of the highly
secure capital.
Human Rights Watch cited a
"reliable interlocutor" who said Shahzad had been
abducted by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI). The ISI issued a rare rebuttal to what it
described as "baseless" media claims that it had
targeted Shahzad for assassination.
At
Margallah Police Station in Islamabad, where the
abduction case has been registered, Station House
Officer Irshad Abroo said: ''No development in the
abduction and murder of Saleem Shahzad has been
made because we are clueless and there is not any
proof that is being witnessed that he has been
kidnapped from Islamabad.''
The case has
to be solved by police in Mandi Bahaudin because
they found the body of Shahzad ''and they have
more information as compared to the capital
police',' Abroo said, adding that Islamabad police
had moved a legal opinion application to seek
advice from higher authorities in the further
investigations.
Pakistani President Asif
Ali Zardari ordered an immediate inquiry into
Shahzad's killing after his body was found with
wounds consistent with having been tortured, while
the Interior Minister Rehman Malik visited the
slain journalist's family and assured them that
quick arrests would be made. Information Minister
Firdous Aashiq Awan said an investigative
committee would be established. That committee was
supposed to submit its report within three days,
but 13 days have now passed with no progress in
the investigation.
The head of the
three-member committee investing Shahzad's
killing, DIG (Establishment) Dr Shuaib Dastgir,
was contacted several times, but citing a tough
schedule was not available to talk with Asia Times
Online. After repeated attempts, Asia Timers
Online has been unable to talk to Mandi Bahaudin
District Police Officer, Dar Ali Khan Khattak.
Sources in the Punjab police said it would
be hard to trace Shahzad's murderers because they
left no proof that could lead the police in
further investigations. The call record of Shahzad
has been wiped from the phone company's data.
Pakistani media reported that Jyotirmoy
Dey, a senior investigative journalist and crime
editor at Mid Day was gunned down in the Indian
city of Mumbai on Saturday. Dey was writing a book
with the assistance of Shahzad on Dawood Ibrahim,
an underworld Indian fugitive wanted in connection
with - among other things - the 1993 Bombay
(Mumbai) bombings, Pakistan media reported.
United States Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and the foreign ministers of the United
Kingdom and Italy have called for a full,
independent investigation into the murder of
Shahzad. Ali Dayan Hasan, a senior researcher for
Human Rights Watch in South Asia, called for a
"transparent investigation and court proceedings"
and said that Shahzad's killing bore "all the
hallmarks of previous killings perpetrated by
Pakistani intelligence agencies".
Previous
enquiries into the killings of Pakistani
journalists have not been made public, with not a
single killer facing justice over the estimated
251 journalists murdered in the country in the
past decade. Pakistan had the world's worst record
for journalist fatalities in 2010 - with 44 deaths
- and four prominent newsmen have been killed this
year.
Malik Ayub Sumbal is a
freelance investigative journalist based in
Islamabad, Pakistan. He has worked for more than
eight years for a number of national and
international newspapers, magazines, journals,
wire services and television channels. He can be
contacted at ayubsumbal@gmail.com
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