An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Wednesday dismissed the bail application of accused Armaghan Kamran in five cases pertaining to Mustafa Amir’s murder, encounter with police and possession of illicit arms.
Armaghan, along with co-accused Shiraz, alias Shavez Bukhari, has been charged with kidnapping and murdering his friend Mustafa in the DHA neighbourhood on January 6, 2025.
Apart from the murder case, he is facing several other cases, including one pertaining to an encounter with an Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC) team during a raid at his bungalow that had left a DSP dead. The other cases pertain to the recovery of sophisticated weapons, an armed attack on a journalist, and an illegal call centre case.
After hearing the complainant’s lawyer Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed Shah, state prosecutor Nasrullah Majeed and the accused in person, the ATC-VII judge dismissed the bail plea. The judge noted that when the police party had conducted the raid at Armaghan’s residence for his arrest, he had resisted it and assaulted the police personnel with weapons.
He said that the encounter had continued for many hours, during which DSP Ahsan Zulfiqar and Constable Iqbal had suffered firearm injures due to Armaghan’s firing. The judge said the AVCC police party had later succeeded in apprehending the accused, and recovered arms and ammunition in large quantities from his residence.
He added that the record shows that during the interrogation, Armaghan had disclosed that more unlicensed arms and ammunition were hidden at his bungalow, after which a police party recovered a huge quantity of them from there.
“The evidence collected by the investigating officer shows that he had collected the CCTV camera footage of the place of the incident as well as the CDR of the accused Armaghan and co-accused Shiraz Bukhari. The piece of carpet was obtained from the place of arrest / recovery in which the blood available was matched with the blood of deceased/victim Mustafa Amir.”
The judge said that two employees of Armaghan had also recorded their statements under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code to “connect the accused persons with the commission of the abduction of Mustafa Amir after maltreatment at the residence of Armaghan, shifting him in his vehicle bearing registration No. AQP-165 and leaving the place”.
The judge said the record shows that Armaghan, with the co-accused, had travelled to an abandoned place in Balochistan and set fire to the victim’s body. Thereafter, they had breakfast and returned to Karachi in a Suzuki pickup.
The court said the CCTV camera footage shows the accused travelling to Balochistan, and the employees of the hotel where the accused had had breakfast had also recorded their statement to the police.
“At present there is a chain of evidence to connect the accused with the commission of the crime; thus, the bail application merits no consideration, and the same is dismissed accordingly,” ruled the judge.
