‘Law enforcement helpless before land, water mafias,’ says SC during Parween Rehman murder case – Pakistan

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court, while listening to a case related to the murder of social worker Parween Rehman in 2013, admonished police agencies, saying they seemed "defenseless against the land and water mafias."

"This matter is becoming a mystery," said Judge Ijazul Ahsan, who was part of the bank. "It's been six years now, what are the police agencies doing?"

The three-member bank, headed by judge Umar Ata Bandial, asked Babar Bakht Qureshi, who heads the joint investigation team (JIT) that investigates the matter, about the findings of the case. Qureshi said there were no significant developments and urged the court to give JIT more time to investigate. He told the bank that since the murder occurred six years ago, JIT could not obtain any data through geofencing.

Judge Ahsan told Qureshi that the JIT had been established because police agencies were not doing their job.

"What are law enforcement agencies doing since 2013? Are these mafias out of reach?" Judge Ahsan asked.

"The mafias have killed people involved in social work," Judge Bandial said.

The court granted Qureshi two months to conclude the investigation and ordered him to submit an interim report in three weeks.

Read: JIT sees "land mafia" behind the murder of Perween Rehman

In June, it was learned that investigators were still trying to collect "basic forensic and circumstantial evidence" related to the murder, as two joint investigation teams overlooked the basic things to solve the mystery surrounding high-profile murder.

This disclosure came in an interim report filed in the Supreme Court, where the sister of the murdered activist Aquila Ismail filed a request to reinvestigate the case by the Federal Investigation Agency.

Rehman, a social worker who dedicated her life to the development of impoverished neighborhoods across the country, was shot dead near her office in the city of Orangi in 2013.

The next day, police killed a Taliban agent named Qari Bilal in a meeting and claimed that he was the murderer, which resulted in the closing of the case.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan in April 2014 ordered the authorities to conduct a new investigation into the murder of Parveen Rehman after a judicial investigation revealed that police officers had manipulated the investigation.

A JIT report in 2018 had explained three possible theories behind the motive: the work of TTP or jihadist elements against Rehman's vision; second, the illegal water and hydrant mafia in the city; and, finally, organized crime groups involved in land grabbing because she struggled to help residents of the Goth Abad schemes guarantee their land rights.