A Karachi anti-terrorism court has acquitted the last seven police officers accused in the notorious Naqeebullah Mehsud murder case, completing a clean sweep of acquittals that has left all 25 suspects free and the victim’s family without justice eight years after his death.
The court on Saturday cleared former Station House Officer Amanullah Marwat along with six other officers—Shoaib Shooter, Guda Hussain, Sadaqat Hussain, Riaz Ahmed, Raja Shamim, and Mohsin Abbas—citing a complete absence of evidence. Defence lawyers pointed out that not a single witness had come forward to testify that the deadly 2018 encounter was staged, despite an official inquiry confirming exactly that.
The seven men had been fugitives for years, only surrendering after the court had already acquitted the case’s most prominent figure: former Senior Superintendent of Police Rao Anwar and 18 others in January 2023. Prosecutors acknowledged the men’s long absence but could not overcome the evidentiary void that has plagued this case from the start.
Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old aspiring model from South Waziristan, was killed on January 13, 2018, in what police initially called a terrorist encounter. Authorities claimed he and three others were militants. But the story quickly unraveled. A Supreme Court-ordered inquiry led by Additional Inspector General Sanaullah Abbasi concluded definitively that Mehsud had been murdered in a fake encounter orchestrated by Rao Anwar’s team.
The killing ignited a firestorm of public anger across Pakistan. Protests erupted in Karachi, Islamabad, and Pashtun-majority areas, with activists and citizens demanding accountability for what they saw as a symbol of unchecked police brutality. The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) gained momentum partly on the back of this case, turning Naqeebullah’s name into a rallying cry against extrajudicial killings.
Rao Anwar and his team went into hiding after the inquiry report surfaced. An FIR was registered, and in March 2019, an anti-terrorism court formally indicted Anwar and his co-accused. All denied the charges. Yet despite the inquiry’s findings and the initial momentum, the prosecution’s case fell apart in court.
Legal experts and human rights advocates have expressed alarm at the outcome. The acquittals highlight systemic weaknesses in Pakistan’s criminal justice system: witness intimidation, poor evidence collection, lack of forensic rigor, and alleged collusion between police and prosecution. Critics argue that powerful officers can evade accountability even when official inquiries confirm wrongdoing.
For Naqeebullah’s family and supporters, the verdict is a devastating blow. It sends a chilling message about the cost of seeking justice against the state’s armed institutions. The case, once a symbol of hope for reform, now stands as a cautionary tale of how even the most high-profile accusations can dissolve in the face of procedural failures and missing witnesses.
The acquittals also raise uncomfortable questions about the gap between public outrage and courtroom outcomes in Pakistan. While the streets demanded justice, the legal system could not—or would not—deliver it.
