By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A judicial magistrate on Saturday ordered the release on bail of the son of an Islamabad High Court justice in a fatal hit-and-run case that killed two young women, after the victims’ families appeared in court to say they had forgiven him.
The decision came days after the accident, which occurred late Monday night near the Pakistan National Council of the Arts when a black sports utility vehicle, allegedly driven at high speed by the accused, Abuzar, struck a scooter carrying the two women. The victims, who worked part-time for an event management company, died at the scene from severe injuries.
Abuzar, the son of Justice Mohammed Asif of the Islamabad High Court, had been in police custody since Tuesday. He was brought before Judicial Magistrate Shaista Kundi on Saturday at the end of a four-day physical remand. During the hearing, the court took statements from the victims’ relatives confirming their pardon.The brother of one victim testified in person, while her mother submitted a statement online. The father of the other victim also told the court he had pardoned Abuzar. With those statements on record, the magistrate accepted the bail application and directed that the accused be released immediately.
The case began with a First Information Report filed at the Secretariat Police Station by Sub-Inspector Muhammad Asghar. According to the report, the SUV fled the scene after the collision. Police used the vehicle’s registration number to trace it and found Abuzar at a private hospital, where he had gone for medical treatment. Officers took him into custody, collected medical and forensic samples, and impounded the vehicle for further examination.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Kundi had granted the initial remand at the request of investigators, who said they needed time to verify a medical report, inspect the vehicle and gather statements from eyewitnesses. The charges included sections 322 for manslaughter, 279 for rash driving or riding on a public way, and 427 for mischief causing damage, all under the Pakistan Penal Code.
The swift resolution through family pardon stands in contrast to other high-profile traffic fatalities involving relatives of prominent judges in Pakistan, where investigations have sometimes dragged on or ended without conviction. In one such case from 2022, an SUV allegedly driven by the daughter of a Lahore High Court judge struck and killed two people near the Sohan bridge on the Islamabad Expressway. Shakeel Tanoli and his colleague, Hasnain Ali, were heading home around midnight on June 8 when the vehicle hit them. The inquiry into that incident remained stalled for months.
In July 2024, Inspector General Ali Nasir Rizvi of the Islamabad Police informed the Islamabad High Court that the SUV in that hit-and-run had been driven by a woman and was in the use of Supreme Court Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmed. By February of this year, a local court in Islamabad acquitted Shanzay Malik, the justice’s daughter. Judicial Magistrate Adnan Yousuf announced the verdict, accepting an acquittal application from her legal team.
Such cases have drawn scrutiny to the handling of accidents involving the elite, raising questions about accountability in a country where road fatalities are common but prosecutions uneven. Pakistan’s traffic laws allow for settlements through pardon or compensation in manslaughter cases, a provision rooted in Islamic legal principles that emphasise reconciliation.
Officials at the Islamabad High Court and the police declined to comment on the latest case beyond the court records. Abuzar’s legal representatives could not be reached for immediate response. The two victims in Monday’s accident have not been publicly identified by authorities, but their families’ decision to forgive came amid the rapid pace of the proceedings.
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