Khwaja’s son to file murder case against TV anchor Hamid Mir

Daily Dawn On Wednesday, the family of Khalid Khwaja, the ISI official who was kidnapped by a militant group in the Tribal Areas in late March and subsequently killed, declared their intentions of getting a case registered against the television anchor, Hamid Mir.

“We will be first going to the police and also to the Supreme Court in a few days’ time to get a case registered against Mir for being instrumental in the murder of my father by Punjabi Taliban,” Osama Khalid, son of Khalid Khwaja, told Dawn by telephone on Wednesday.

Khalid Khwaja’s wife was a bit more circumspect in her remarks. She confirmed to Dawn that the family was consulting a group of three lawyers as to what legal course could be adopted to book the killers of her husband.

“It is a very sensitive issue for us. We don’t want to take any action in haste. Even right now my son has gone to meet our lawyers,” she said when asked whether they had decided to lodge a formal FIR with police.

Khalid Khwaja, another ISI official Colonel Imam and British journalist Asad Qureishi were kidnapped on March 26 when they were on their way to Waziristan apparently to make a documentary film on Taliban. Khwaja was shot dead on April 30 while the other two men are still in the custody of militants. A group called Asian Tigers claimed responsibility for the kidnappings as well as Khwaja’s killing.

A couple of weeks after the murder, an explosive audio tape in which a militant commander was said to be engaged in a conversation with a journalist surfaced on the Internet. Those who released the tape cautioned listeners against jumping to conclusions but hinted that the journalist could be well-known anchor Hamid Mir.

In the tape the ‘journalist’ is heard accusing Khwaja of being a CIA agent and of working for Ahmedis as also of having played a ‘dirty’ role in the Lal Masjid episode in July 2007. Mir has described the tape as ‘doctored’, ‘concocted’ and being a ‘part of a larger game to malign’ him. On Tuesday, his lawyer sent a legal notice to a newspaper and a television channel for running news items based on the audio tape.

In his talk with Dawn on Wednesday, Khalid Khwaja’s son said he also recognised the second voice on the audio tape. “It belonged to Usman Punjabi alias Umer. I recognised his voice as he had spoken to me five or six times during the period when my father was in (militants’) captivity,” he said.

“I have the call record (of that conversation between the journalist and the militant),” Osama said. “The call was made on April 19 and the video of my father’s confessional statement released to media on April 23. This is enough evidence for me.”

Osama maintained that during the time his father was in captivity, Usman Punjabi had also contacted other journalists apart from Mir to have their ‘views’ about his father.

“These journalists will be on our side in the court,” he said as he appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to hold a judicial inquiry into the matter to “find out the truth”.