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. — DNA
