ISLAMABAD: A joint investigation team (JIT) of the FIA set up to look into the hosing down of the place where former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated has absolved former ASP Syed Ashfaq Anwar, AIG (CID) Chaudhry Abdul Majeed and DCO Mohammad Irfan Elahi of responsibility in the incident. According to sources, the team has asked the interior ministry to remove their names from the Exit Control List (ECL).
The Federal Investigation Agency has asked the government to allow the two police officials and the former district coordination officer to resume their duties.
FIA Special Investigation Group (SIG) Director General Mohammad Khalid Qureshi said a letter had been sent to the ministry in this regard.
However, he did not reply when asked if any of the police officials under investigation had left for the United Kingdom on a scholarship.
The JIT is yet to complete its investigation into the role of former Rawalpindi city police chief Saud Aziz, SSP Yasin Farooq and SP Khurram Shahzad Haider.
The SIG, which is investigating the murder case, had found out in May that the telecommunication record book of Rawalpindi police had been “tampered with” and interviewed three officials of the police telecommunications wing, besides an SP on whose alleged order it had been done.
ASP Syed Ashfaq Anwar who had been posted in the headquarters and who was assigned to provide box security (supervision) to Ms Bhutto was also interviewed by the JIT for more than three hours in connection with the tampering.
Telecommunications Wing DSP Munawar Gill and operators Ahmed Nawaz and Bilal Ahmed were the other personnel who were interviewed.
The Lahore High Court had ordered the removal of Mr Anwar’s name from the ECL on a petition filed by him.
The officer has been waiting to leave for the UK on a British Council scholarship.
The government had placed the names of SP Ashfaq Anwar, former CPO Saud Aziz, SSP Yasin Farooq, SP Khuram Shahzad, DCO Irfan Elahi and additional inspector general of police Abdul Majeed on the ECL after constituting a three-member committee to probe into the hosing down of the place after the assassination.
The names of a former director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul, former Intelligence Bureau chief Brig (retd) Ijaz Shah and former federal secretary Kamal Shah were also placed on the ECL.
A UN report on Ms Bhutto’s assassination had said that, contrary to police’s assertion, there was no police-provided box formation around her as she arrived at a rally and the Elite Force unit did not execute their duties as specified in the security deployment. The United Nations commission said it did not believe that the full escort as described by police was ever present.
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