ISLAMABAD: Mystery continues to shroud the whereabouts of an MQM leader Khalid Shamim who went missing from Karachi three years ago on January 5, 2011, roughly three months after the puzzling murder of Dr Imran Farooq in September 2010.
Despite repeated directives in the past three years, first from the Sindh High Court, and then from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, to recover and produce the missing MQM leader, the Karachi police have simply failed to locate Khalid Shamim, who has already been linked to the high-profile murder case of Dr Imran Farooq by the Scotland Yard.
According to Beena Khalid, wife of Khalid Shamim, her husband was whisked away in two cars bearing official registration number plates by the personnel of intelligence agencies on the night of January 5, 2011. At the time of the incident, he was getting money from an ATM in Malir Halt area of Karachi while his family was sitting in the car, waiting for his return.
Beena, who had first approached the Sindh High Court and then the Supreme Court seeking recovery of her husband, says the abduction was witnessed by many people but no one came to his rescue.
Despite Khalid Shamim’s known links with the MQM, Beena insists that her husband, who is an accountant with the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, was neither involved in any criminal activity nor affiliated with a political party.
But even then, she alleges, her husband had been picked up in connection with Imran Farooq’s murder. In a constitutional petition filed with the Sindh High Court seeking the recovery of Khalid Shamim, Beena annexed transcripts of news telecast by different television channels and clippings from newspapers, linking her husband’s arrest to the September 2010 murder. But after several hearings, the court was finally informed that Khalid was neither in the custody of any Pakistani law enforcement agency nor has he been handed over to any foreign agency.
Beena Khalid subsequently approached the Supreme Court, with the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry taking up her petition on August 31, 2013 and directing the Inspector General of Sindh Police to recover and produce Khalid Shamim as early as possible. But there has been no progress in the case since then, although the Scotland Yard continues to make headway in the murder investigations of Dr Imran Farooq.
In June 2013, the British Police had arrested Iftikhar Hussain, being a suspect in the murder.
The arrest was made on the basis of the forensic evidence gathered by the British Police which stated that they have sought the Call Detail Record (CDR) along with text messages from the SIM obtained from Iftikhar Hussain.
The information obtained from the SIM of Iftikhar Hussain brought into limelight some previously unknown facts and connections which have almost solved the murder case. As per the Scotland Yard findings, Imran Farooq was killed by his political opponents.
The story goes that the then member of the National Assembly from Karachi had actually been tasked to physically eliminate Dr Imran Farooq. He subsequently assigned the job to Khalid Shamim.
Khalid sought help from Hammad Siddiqi who provided him with two henchmen who were to be dispatched to London to carry out the job. Khalid Shamim arranged student visas for both the boys — Mohsin Ali Syed and Muhammad Kashif Khan Kamran, recently named by BBC in its report.
Upon their arrival in London, both were briefed about Dr Imran Farooq’s routine by an unidentified man. They allegedly killed Imran soon afterwards and left for Colombo the same day instead of returning to Pakistan to mislead those investigating the case. But they were ordered by Khalid Shamim to return to Pakistan.
A secret agency reportedly recorded all conversations between Khalid and the two killers who themselves were to be eliminated upon their arrival in Karachi with a view to erase all the traces in the murder case.
The agencies detained the boys when they reached Karachi from Colombo and then made them listen the recordings of their conversations. They were quick to confess to the murder, for which they can only be charged in England and not in Pakistan. Khalid Shamim was arrested a few days later from Karachi.
However, to essentially prove that these two were “the” killers, the Scotland Yard requires their custody to carry out their DNA tests to establish whether or not they were at the scene of the assassination. Seeking from Pakistan government the custody of Mohsin Ali Syed and Kashif Khan Kamran, the Scotland Yard has informed the Pakistani authorities that they have found DNA of the two men from the crime spot besides having eye-witnesses who saw Imran being killed.
