By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: A former Balochistan lawmaker has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for causing the death of a traffic policeman who was run over in Quetta in 2017, after the province’s high court overturned his acquittal.
Abdul Majeed Achakzai, a former member of the provincial assembly and onetime provincial minister from the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), was convicted on Tuesday under Section 320 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which covers deaths caused by rash or negligent driving. The court ordered him to serve rigorous imprisonment and to pay diyat, the compensation due to a victim’s heirs under Pakistani law.
A division bench of Justice Muhammad Aamir Nawaz Rana and Justice Abdul Qayyum Lehri allowed the provincial government’s appeal and set aside the verdict handed down by a Quetta trial court on 4 September 2020. The judges found that Achakzai had killed Traffic Sub-Inspector Haji Ataullah, who was on duty, by hitting him while driving recklessly and at high speed.
The bench directed the Additional Sessions Judge-VI in Quetta to issue non-bailable warrants for Achakzai, who has been out on bail, and told the authorities to carry them out promptly so that he could be moved to prison. There was no immediate word on whether he had been taken into custody.
The killing took place on 20 June 2017 at GPO Chowk on Zarghoon Road. An official Land Cruiser belonging to Achakzai struck Haji Ataullah Dashti, a traffic sergeant, who suffered serious injuries and died in hospital. A cyclist, Abdul Ghafoor Baloch, was also hurt. Achakzai had been returning from a session of the Balochistan Assembly.
The prosecution alleged that the vehicle ran over Dashti after he signalled it to stop. CCTV footage showed the vehicle hitting the officer after an exchange of words between the two. There were also unconfirmed reports at the time that the driver was reckless and intoxicated.
Police first registered a case against unidentified people, treating the death as a road accident. That changed when the footage spread across social media and was shown repeatedly on television channels, and journalists in Balochistan held protests. Officers then booked Achakzai on charges of terrorism, murder and attempted murder and arrested him at his home in Quetta’s Satellite Town within days. Soon after his arrest, the dispute took on an ethnic dimension, with Baloch and Pashtun users arguing over it online.
The terrorism charge was dropped after police could not establish it. In September 2017 a sessions court indicted Achakzai, who declined to accept the charges. An anti-terrorism court granted him bail, and he left jail on 29 December 2017. Earlier that year a purported agreement letter circulated online claiming the officer’s family had pardoned the lawmaker in exchange for Rs200,000; the dead man’s son denied any compromise.
The case moved to a model criminal trial court in Quetta and stayed there for about three years. Judge Dost Muhammad Mandokhail acquitted Achakzai in his 29-page judgment, finding that none of the 20 prosecution witnesses, among them eyewitnesses and the dead officer’s brother, had named him as the driver. The judge noted that police held no identification parade after naming him as an accused, that the CCTV footage did not show who was at the wheel, and that witness statements contained contradictions and omissions. The prosecution, he concluded, had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. Achakzai was cleared of charges under sections 302, 324, 279, 337 and 427 of the Penal Code.
In a statement recorded under Section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Achakzai said his driver had been behind the wheel and that he had not been in the vehicle. After the incident, he was reported to have acknowledged that he had been driving his official vehicle, saying he would compensate Dashti’s family and the injured cyclist and wanted to travel to Dera Ghazi Khan with tribal elders to meet the family.
Quetta’s police chief announced soon after the acquittal that the force would challenge it in the high court. The then prime minister, Imran Khan, was reported to have voiced concern over the verdict. The provincial government’s appeal was decided on Tuesday.
Achakzai was first elected to the provincial assembly in 2002 and won the PB-13 Qila Abdullah seat in 2013. He served in the provincial cabinet and chaired the assembly’s Public Accounts Committee. He is a close relative of Mehmood Khan Achakzai, the PkMAP chairman and a leading opposition figure.
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