KARACHI: The city\npolice chief on Monday claimed to have arrested the main hitman, who allegedly\nkilled the Geo News reporter Wali Khan Babar and evading the law for nearly ten\nyears. The press conference was jointly addressed by Sindh Information Minister\nNasir Hussain Shah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Babar, aged 28, was\nshot dead in the Liaquatabad neighborhood of Karachi while driving home from\noffice in the jurisdiction of the Super Market police station on January 13,\n2011. The murder case was lodged the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKamran alias\nZeeshan Shani, who is an activist of a local political party, carried out the\nBabar\u2019s cold-blooded murder and he was given death penalty by the ATC. However,\nhe successfully evaded law and remained an absconder till Monday. He was\narrested during a joint operation,\u201d Memon said. \u201cKamran kept changing his\nhideouts and finally on Monday morning, on the intelligence-based tipoff by a\nfederal agency, the Special Investigation Unit apprehended him with weapons.\u201d\nIn order to evade arrest, the Kamran would regularly change his hideouts. The\nAdditional IG Karachi said that the suspect remained underground for five years\nwhen police, intelligence agencies and the witnesses were actively pursuing\nhim. He eventually settled down in Gulshan-e-Maymar, with his family in the\ncomfort that the chase had gone cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, the\nPolice had arrested five other suspects \u2013 Faisal Mehmood alias Nafsiyati,\nNaveed alias Polka, Muhammad Ali Rizvi, Shahrukh alias Manni and Shakil Malik \u2013\nin the city on April 7, 2011. The City Police Chief further said that both\nKamran alias Shani and Faisal Mota were involved in the murder and they\nreceived death sentences and added that the culprit has initially confessed to\nfour other murder cases \u201cHe will be interrogated further,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police official\nsaid that the case gained lot of attention, as Babar was a crime reporter of\nGeo News and quite active in the field. Initially, there were eight accused and\namong them one was identified as Liaquat Ali, who was killed in an encounter.\nMemon said that several witnesses were murdered, including Rajab Bengali, who\nwas killed in 2011. Another \u2018star\u2019 witness Haider Ali, on whose testimony the\nconviction took place was similarly killed in 2012. Advocate Naimat Ali\nRandhawa was also murdered in September 2013 while he was pleading the case as\na special public prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the\nconfession of Zeeshan, the police chief said MQM-London South Africa was\ninvolved in the journalist\u2019s murder. \u201cWali Babar was killed because he was\nconsidered close to the Awami National Party (ANP) and would report anti-Altaf\nHussain stories,\u201d he claimed. The suspect had joined the MQM (London) in 2008\nand became part of Faisal alias Mota\u2019s target killing gang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing media,\nPPP minister Nasir Hussain Shah said that the ruling party in the province\nbelieves in freedom of speech. \u201cThe government is taking action for injustice\nagainst the journalists, no matter how old the case is,\u201d; the minister said.\n\u201cJournalist Aziz Memon\u2019s murder case was solved and the criminals were\narrested. I appreciate Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon, who solved the\ncase and worked this one out as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An anti-terrorism\ncourt in Karachi had awarded life imprisonment to four in Babar\u2019s murder case\nwhile Faisal alias Mota and Kamran alias Shani, were given death sentences in\nabsentia in 2014. Later Faisal alias Mota was arrested from Nine Zero, the\nheadquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in March 2015, while Kamran alias\nZeeshani Shani was on the run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the\nCommittee to Protect Journalists, “Babar was shot shortly after his story\non gang violence aired on the country’s most widely watched broadcaster, Geo\nTV.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspaper: The News<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Links: Nation<\/a>,\nDawn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KARACHI: The city police chief on Monday claimed to have arrested the main hitman, who allegedly killed the Geo News reporter Wali Khan Babar and evading the law for nearly ten years. The press conference was jointly addressed by Sindh Information Minister Nasir Hussain Shah. Babar, aged 28, was shot dead in the Liaquatabad neighborhood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}