CRIME: CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS

On February 8, a police party visited a residence on Khayaban-i-Momin, a secure and serene part of Karachi’s upscale Defence locality. They were there to find out about the whereabouts of a 23-year-old who had been missing for over a month.

But instead of answers, they received a hail of bullets. An hours-long shootout ensued, with the resident using automatic weaponry, and even a drone, to keep the police at bay. Two cops were shot and reinforcements had to be called in, with the lone gunman forced to retreat to the roof, from where he continued to fire with a German-made MP-47.

The gunman was eventually arrested and identified as 28-year-old Armaghan Kamran Qureshi, who had been living on rent in the 1,200-yard house for around 18 months. In the garage was a Ford Raptor and an Audi, both without number plates, while outside the gate was a plaque that read “ARMY”, which apparently is Armaghan’s nickname and also a reference to Pakistan’s most influential entity.

While the police found a lot of weaponry, and a set-up for a call centre, they did not find Mustafa Amir, who had been missing since January 6.

A body burned beyond recognition, a suspect living in luxury, and a mother searching for her son. A shootout in a posh Karachi locality unravels more questions than answers. Will justice be served in the Mustafa Amir case?

GONE WITHOUT A TRACE

A final year university student, 23-year-old Mustafa was an avid fan of fast cars and driving, and was known on a local Facebook group of car enthusiasts for his daredevilry at the wheel of his Toyota Mark X sedan — with tinted windows and often spotted without a number plate.

When he didn’t return home for the night, Mustafa’s mother Wajeeha feared that her son had been abducted. “It was very unlike him,” Wajeeha tells Eos in a phone interview. Multiple visits to the police station did result in the registration of a first information report (FIR), but not much else.

Later, investigators told Eos that the initial reluctance to follow up on the case was due to Mustafa’s involvement in a narcotics-related case. “The assumption was that he had either ‘taken off’ to avoid a court hearing or was in the custody of one the agencies,” multiple police officials told Eos while requesting anonymity.

At the same time, police in the Balochistan town of Hub, which borders Karachi, found a burnt vehicle with a body inside, and informed their counterparts in Karachi. But there was no follow-up, and the police handed the body over to the Edhi Welfare Organisation, which buried it.

THE CALL THAT UNRAVELLED ALL

Almost three weeks after her son went missing, Wajeeha received a ransom call. According to her, the call came a day or so after she had aggressively quizzed Armaghan about her son.

The ransom call saw the involvement of the Anti-Violent Crimes Cell (AVCC), the Crime Investigation Agency and the Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC). They traced Mustafa’s phone to Armaghan’s residence and also found that Mustafa’s last phone conversation had also been with him.

Following the raid and the ensuing shoot-out, police found blood stains in one of the rooms that were later matched with Mustafa’s. What followed was a speculative media frenzy about Mustafa’s whereabouts and the source of Armaghan’s riches.

As this was happening, a judge of an anti-terrorism court turned down the police’s request for the physical remand of the accused, instead ordering that he be sent to judicial custody. This meant that the police would be unable to question the accused, including about Mustafa’s whereabouts.

The manner of the refusal raised quite a furore, with even the Sindh chief minister repeating the reported interaction in court, where the ATC judge, Syed Zakir Hussain, remarked that “they [cops] had only been shot, not killed” before turning down the request.

Mustafa’s mother Wajeeha, who was in the court that day, tells Eos that the judge completely snubbed her when she tried to speak. “He told me that your turn will come after 30 days,” she says.

The order was overturned on police appeal by the Sindh High Court on February 18, with the accused finally remanded to police custody.

In the middle of it all, police also found another suspect, one Sheraz Bukhari, who also goes by the nickname Shavez and is believed to be a school friend of Armaghan. He confessed to the police that Armaghan had called Mustafa over to his house and then attacked him with an iron rod, before shooting him dead.

According to the alleged confession, the two then bundled Mustafa’s body in the back of his Mark X, which they drove the same night — sans number plate and with tinted glasses — all the way to Hub, where Armaghan set it on fire. The two then returned to their respective homes in Karachi, from where they travelled to the north to observe from afar if they would be suspects in the case.

A GAME OF HIGH STAKES

It is still unclear what led to the dispute between the two that led to the alleged murder. One theory is that it was over a girl, with Armaghan wanting the babyface Mustafa out of the way. Another suggests that Mustafa was going to give up Armaghan to the authorities due to a drug case.

What is undisputed is that Armaghan was swimming in cash, with investigators telling Eos that he used cash, including dollars, to pay for his expenses, including for purchasing the two cars, the house rent as well as the expenses of the security company, through which he deployed at least 50 guards outside his residence. The guards were removed a few months ago following complaints from area residents.

Those part of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) believe that Armaghan was involved in phishing, locally known as “dabba”. Armaghan’s call centre set-up and lack of any legal source of income suggests that. Multiple FIA officials told Eos that people could make Rs10 million or more per month, depending upon their team and network.

Kamran Asghar Qureshi, Armaghan’s father, insists that his son is being framed, and also accuses the police of robbing his residence under the guise of the raid. He tells Eos that police were pressuring his son in order to extort money, which forced him to get the extra security for his “software house.”

However, Kamran did not have any idea about the nature of his son’s “software” work, which university his son had studied in, whether he had ever studied coding or software engineering, whether his son had a bank account, or if he was actually making payments for the rent and everything else with cash, as investigators have suggested to Eos in informal conversations. He acknowledged, however, that the “software house” wasn’t registered.

QUESTIONS GALORE

A judicial magistrate has authorised the exhumation of the body buried by Edhi to determine if it is indeed Mustafa’s and the cause of death. As this happens, social media is flooded with #JusticeForMustafa, while mainstream media is now covering every aspect of the case. But a number of glaring larger questions surround this case.

For instance, why did it take until the shoot-out for the whole country and the police apparatus to take up the case? Surely, if an unidentified body had been found burnt in the vicinity of Karachi, law enforcement should have at least tried to determine if it involved anyone reported missing.

Why was Mustafa’s call detail record, or CDR, not acquired by the Darakhshan police station, where his missing report had been registered, and why did the officers involved face action only after public and media outcry? What compelled the ATC judge to deny the police remand request, allegedly overwriting his original order?

How did Armaghan evade the attention of the authorities despite having high security, barbed wires and 50-100 guards deployed outside his house? It now turns out that he was an absconder in at least one case of the four or five previously registered against him.

How can you live such a high-profile existence and still be an absconder? How did a commercial call centre operating in the heart of a quiet and secure residential area fail to raise eyebrows or get the attention of the local police? How did our revenue agencies allow the people involved in high-stakes deals with Armaghan get away with massive cash transactions? Who was on Armaghan’s payroll and who else benefitted from his business?

More importantly, who do you need to know to get away with murder?

The writer is a staff member.
X: @hussainydada

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 23rd, 2025