Being framed for Naqeebullah's killing, Rao Anwar claims.

KARACHI -- Malir's former senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rao Anwar has denied allegations of extrajudicially killing aspiring model, NaqeebAullah Mehsud, and three other captives, alleging the case was false and managed at the behest of other police officers over departmental rivalry.

Mr Anwar and his around two dozen subordinates have been charged with murdering NaseebAullah, better known as Naqeebullah, and three others in a staged encounter in January 2018 after dubbing them 'Taliban militants'.

The killing of Mr Mehsud, an aspiring model from South Waziristan residing in Karachi, stormed social media with public condemnations and sparked countrywide protests by civil society against the state's failure to arrest the former SSP and his team.

The then chief justice, Mian Saqib Nisar, took suo motu and twice offered Mr Anwar to surrender. The former SPP, after eluding the law enforcers for some three months, was finally arrested after he surrendered before the Supreme Court in March 2018.

Sindh police then kept him in a house in Malir Cantonment, which was later declared a sub-jail.

The high-profile trial has faced inordinate delays, especially since March 11 this year, when the case reached the crucial stage of recording testimonies of the accused police officials after four years.

The delay was mostly due to the absence of their defence counsel and also because the tenure of its judge had expired. The trial began last month.

Mr Mehsud's ageing father, Muhammad Khan, who was the complainant against the police officials, passed away in December 2019. Mr Mehsud's younger brother Alam Sher then became the complainant.

After over four years, the ATC-XVI judge finally recorded Rao Anwar's testimony on Nov 5, as required under Section 342...