A few questions about SSP Rao Anwar
By Omar R Quraishi
More than 2 months after a police encounter in which Naqeebullah Mehsud was killed and labelled a Taliban by SSP Rao Anwar, and several weeks after the said police officer went into hiding, he surfaced on March 21, and presented himself before the Supreme Court in Islamabad. He was promptly ordered arrested but not before the Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saquib Nisar proudly proclaimed that the majesty of the Court had been maintained by the police officer's 'surrender' to the Court.
Prior to this, Rao Anwar had written twice to the Court, including once asking that his accounts be unfrozen -- and this happened during a period spanning several weeks where the Court was calling in senior police officials of the Sindh government and reprimanding them for failing to arrest the SSP and present him before the Court. Then, later, the Defence Ministry sought a week's time to find details of his whereabouts and present them to the Court, a request which was accepted by the SC.
On the day of his appearance, he also asked that the SC set up a joint investigation team (JIT) with reps of the ISI and IB in it but this was rejected by the Court, which said that it would be constituting its own JIT.
All this happened in a period lasting approximately 2 months.
Given that the SSP eventually came to court, several basic questions need to be asked:
1. Where was Rao Anwar all this time?
2. Was he in fact in the UK, and if so how did he leave the country?
3. If he wasn't out of the country, where was he and who was sheltering him and why? This is a particularly important question given that a police inquiry and a JIT set up by the Sindh government had concluded that he and his men had killed Naqeeb Mehsud in cold blood, after he refused their demands for extortion money.
4. Why was he provided a security detail of anti-terrorism police when he appeared before the SC and to what end?
5. Isn't the particular case of the killing of Naqeeb Mehsud and open-and-shut case of murder and misuse of official authority by a senior police officer?
6. Is this what taxpayers money is used for? As in to kill innocent citizens in alleged encounters and then labelling them as Taliban after they have been killed.
7. Isn't it true that the case of Naqeeb Mehsud came to the public and the court's spotlight primarily because Naqeeb had his own profiles on social media sites which quite clearly showed that he was not a terrorist but in fact probably an aspiring model?
8. Is it not possible that some of the hundreds of men that Rao Anwar and his team killed in police encounters were -- like Naqeeb Mehsud -- innocent?
More than 2 months after a police encounter in which Naqeebullah Mehsud was killed and labelled a Taliban by SSP Rao Anwar, and several weeks after the said police officer went into hiding, he surfaced on March 21, and presented himself before the Supreme Court in Islamabad. He was promptly ordered arrested but not before the Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saquib Nisar proudly proclaimed that the majesty of the Court had been maintained by the police officer's 'surrender' to the Court.
Prior to this, Rao Anwar had written twice to the Court, including once asking that his accounts be unfrozen -- and this happened during a period spanning several weeks where the Court was calling in senior police officials of the Sindh government and reprimanding them for failing to arrest the SSP and present him before the Court. Then, later, the Defence Ministry sought a week's time to find details of his whereabouts and present them to the Court, a request which was accepted by the SC.
On the day of his appearance, he also asked that the SC set up a joint investigation team (JIT) with reps of the ISI and IB in it but this was rejected by the Court, which said that it would be constituting its own JIT.
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| Naqeebullah Mehsud's pics from his social media accounts -- and bottom is his body killed in a 'police encounter' with SSP Rao Anwar and his men |
All this happened in a period lasting approximately 2 months.
Given that the SSP eventually came to court, several basic questions need to be asked:
1. Where was Rao Anwar all this time?
2. Was he in fact in the UK, and if so how did he leave the country?
3. If he wasn't out of the country, where was he and who was sheltering him and why? This is a particularly important question given that a police inquiry and a JIT set up by the Sindh government had concluded that he and his men had killed Naqeeb Mehsud in cold blood, after he refused their demands for extortion money.
4. Why was he provided a security detail of anti-terrorism police when he appeared before the SC and to what end?
5. Isn't the particular case of the killing of Naqeeb Mehsud and open-and-shut case of murder and misuse of official authority by a senior police officer?
6. Is this what taxpayers money is used for? As in to kill innocent citizens in alleged encounters and then labelling them as Taliban after they have been killed.
7. Isn't it true that the case of Naqeeb Mehsud came to the public and the court's spotlight primarily because Naqeeb had his own profiles on social media sites which quite clearly showed that he was not a terrorist but in fact probably an aspiring model?
8. Is it not possible that some of the hundreds of men that Rao Anwar and his team killed in police encounters were -- like Naqeeb Mehsud -- innocent?
There is more to the role played by Rao Anwar than that of a rogue killer investigation could lead to even more sinister crimes.
ReplyDeleteRao could not have functioned or survived except as a pawn for a more powerful entity that protected him and his murders which may well have been engineered with the help of other pawns.