Court acquits all 8 accused in Dadu’s Chandio tribe triple murder case

HYDERABAD: The Model Criminal Court of Dadu on Monday acquitted all eight accused in the triple murder case of an ex-PPP UC chairman and his two sons in the district’s Mehar town.

The ex-UC chairman, Raees Karamullah Chandio and two sons, Mukhtiar and Qabil, were gunned down in an armed attack on their residence in Ahmed Colony on Jan 17, 2018.

The attack was blamed on their PPP colleagues, MPA and Chandio tribe chieftain Sardar Chandio and his brother Burhan Chandio. Both the accused were members of the Sindh Assembly at the time of the offence.

Mukhtiar’s daughter Umm-i-Rabab Chandio, who is a lawyer, has been pursuing the case along with other counsel.

During today’s hearing, an additional session judge, Hassan Ali Kalwar, ruled that the prosecution failed to prove the case and acquitted the accused, extending them the benefit of the doubt.

Other than the two MPAs, the accused included Sikandar Ali Chandio, Ali Gohar Chandio, Abdul Sattar Chandio, Zulfiqar alias Qadoo Chandio, Ghulam Murtaza Chandio, and Abdul Kareem Chandio.

The court directed that those accused in custody were to be “set free forthwith if they were not required in any custody case/crime, with an acquittal intimation, and be remanded back to jail custody”.

Bail bonds and sureties of the accused, shown to be on bail, stand discharged, the court ruled.

The complainant’s counsel, Salahuddin Panhwar, in a statement, said, “We are going to challenge the verdict in the Sindh High Court”.

He maintained that the case was “fit for conviction, but all the accused were acquitted”.

“We presented evidence that was sufficient enough to even convict Sardar Khan Chandio for the offence of Section 109 Pakistan Penal Code,” he added.

“One attacker was killed in the attack, whose body was left unattended by the accused,” he recalled, adding that weapons were recovered from the accused as well.

He also said that there were “three eye witnesses who disclosed the names of the accused, however, these were not considered by the court”.

He also added that security arrangements had been made for the accused.

A day earlier, it emerged that the district police of Dadu had made extraordinary security arrangements ahead of the verdict in the high-profile murder case, including the imposition of Section 144 across the district.

The defence counsel, Athar Abbas Solangi, however, maintained that Burhan was in Tando Muhammad Khan at the time of the incident. He further held that the complainant was attempting to prolong the case “only to prove the involvement of MPA Sardar”.

The case

The case was lodged on the complaint of Pervaiz Ahmed Chandio, son of one of the deceased, Karamullah in the Mehar police station under Sections 302 (murder), 504 (criminal intimidation), 109 (punishment for abetment), 114 (Abettor present when offence is committed), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), and 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object).

According to the FIR, the complainant said that his father, Karamullah, who was the chairman of the union council, and his brother Mukhtiar had been receiving threats from Sardar.

The threats came after Mukhtiar, who was the tumander, allied with other tumanders of the Chandio community to stage a revolt against Sardar. The chieftain wanted Mukhtiar to disband the tumander council.

He said that on January 17, 2018, the accused arrived outside their autaak and opened fire, killing the complainant’s father and two brothers.

During the investigation, the investigating officer of the case had cleared MPAs Sardar and Burhan by placing their names in column o -2 of the charge-sheet, which he had submitted before the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Naushahro Feroz.

The ATC judge accepted the findings of the IO, but the complainant challenged it before the Sindh High Court, Sukkur bench, for including the names of the accused in the case.

SHC Sukkur bench allowed the application, and the names of two accused were included in the FIR; however, they were granted pre-arrest bail by ATC.