Four accused attend hearing via video link in Noor murder case

Owing to the blocked roads across the city, an Islamabad session court on Wednesday continued hearing into Noor Mukadam murder case after giving directive to four accused, including prime accused Zahir Jaffer to appear through video conferencing. It is to note that the court had begun the trial of the case on October 20. In today’s hearing, lawyers Shehzad Qureshi and Akram Qureshi represented Therapyworks employees; Asad Jamal represented Asmat Adamjee, and Sajjad Ahmed Bhatti appeared as legal counsel of the household staff of Jaffer’s house. As the proceeding begun, Akram Qureshi informed the court that his clients could not appear today, owing to the blocked roads. On which, the additional Sessions Judge Ata Rabbani stated that the accused may attend the proceedings via Skype, a video-conferencing application. The court directed the police to provide copies of the first statements of the accused they had given to law enforcers. The father of prime accused Zahir Jaffer, Zakir Jaffer informed the court that he has hired Advocate Basharat to plead his case. For cross examination, the three witnesses, constable Abid Latif, who delivered the complainant’s application, Assistant Sub Inspector Basharat, who collected the fingerprints and police constable Aqsa Rani were produced in the court. Defence counsel Akram questioned Latif whether he was asked to reach the spot by his higher-ups. “You said in a written statement that you received the information and in the court, you said you reached the spot on your own,” the lawyer pointed out. As a response, Latif responded that there were no senior police officers present at the time of the incident. The lawyer refuted his claims by claiming that he was hiding the truth. The second witness, Basharat, stated that he had reached the crime scene soon after the incident, where he saw a number of police officers already present and investigating the crime scene. He added that he had been asked by Inspector Abdul Sattar to record the fingerprints. The third witness, Constable Aqsa stated that she had examined the body of Noor Mukadam and informed the investigators about the important details. She added that none from the higher-ups had arrested anyone from the crime scene. The court has given a directive to the police to produce four other witnesses, map-maker Amir Shehzad, computer operator Mudassir, ASI Muhammad Riaz and Head Constable Firasat Fahim in the next hearing, which is scheduled to be held on November 3.