Syed Hammad Raza - Details

Details

Widow of assassinated Additional Registrar of Supreme Court Syed Hamad Raza, Shabana Raza Monday has alleged police are trying to turn the assassination into a dacoity incident and said that her husband was targeted.

She told journalists that police are treating the assassination as a robbery-related crime, which is totally wrong. (The) Police (are) hiding the fact that her husband was gunned down, she held. She underlined that her husband was killed as a result of targeted killing as he was previously getting serious death threats.

It is pertinent to mention that unknown armed men on Monday gunned down Additional Registrar of Supreme Court Syed Hamad Raza at his residence in G-10/2 in Islamabad, the Capital of Pakistan. He has left a widow (37 years) and three children (two sons and one daughter).

He is regarded as a key witness by lawyers representing Pakistan’s suspended chief justice in his fight against President Pervez Musharraf’s move to sack him. Syed Hammad Raza, being the key witness of all this, after May 12, 2007 killings of 40 people in Karachi was going to reveal it to public was eliminated in emergency on May 14, 2007 through agencies with the help of police.

Syed Hammad Raza, an additional registrar of the Supreme Court, was shot at point-blank range by two or three gunmen just before dawn at his home here, police and relatives said. “He was an important person in our case,” Munir Ahmed Malik, a lawyer on suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s legal team, said. Another of Chaudhry’s lawyers said Raza was working closely with the suspended chief justice. “He was witness to many things, like the chief justice said in his petition that some files were removed from his chamber on the day he was suspended,” the lawyer, Tariq Mehmood, said. “He (Hammad) was under pressure,” he said.

Two officers of the British High Commission, Consular Albert David and Helen Rawlins, also visited Mr Raza’s house and talked to the widow who is a British national. When asked about their meeting with Ms Shabana, the diplomats said that being a British national “she had requested us to provide her security” but gave no details of any security provided to her family.

According to the family, four people broke into Mr Raza’s official residence through the kitchen window at around 4.15 am. They overpowered his parents who lived on the ground floor, tied them up and asked them about Mr Raza. Syed Amjad Ali Mashedi Rizvi, father of Mr Raza, said the intruders held the teenage housemaid Ashee at gunpoint and forced her to take them upstairs to Mr Hammad’s bedroom. “As my husband responded to the knocks and opened the door, we saw four clean-shaven men in trousers and shalwar kameez. They were aged between 28 and 35. One of them was holding a pistol and another carried a knife. On seeing Hammad, the gunman shot him in the head and fled,” Ms Shabana said.

She said she ran downstairs crying for help and was surprised to see some policemen in the lawn. They did not do anything. However, police officer Shaukat Pervaiz, a neighbour, responded to her screams. SP Pervaiz, who is detailed with the prime minister’s security squad, shouted at a police patrol, standing about 100 feet away from his house, to catch the culprits but by the time the patrol moved the attackers had disappeared.

Security agencies had questioned Mr Raza for four days after the removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar. Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas visited the residence of Mr Raza, who served as a DMG officer in Balochistan before being brought to the Supreme Court by Justice Iftikhar.

According to family and friends Hammad was a very honest professional who never brought official matters home and never dislosed any secrets to his wife or family. He however has been known to confide in several government officials who he was friends with. Hammad had also visited EU parliament in Europe as part of a government delegation where he made very close friends with several European counterparts who still remain in close contact with his family.

The acting chief justice directed the registrar of the Supreme Court to make arrangements with regard to burial and other matters and prepare a compensation package for the widow and children of the deceased. Asif Shahzad adds from Lahore: Mr Raza was buried in Lahore’s Allama Iqbal Town.

Talking to Dawn, Intizar Mehdi, a cousin of the deceased, alleged that it was a target killing. “The moment Hammad opened the door, the intruders shot him in the head without having any argument,” he said, adding that the robbers would not act the way the killers had. There was a lot of jewellery and cash in the house but the gunmen had not touched anything, he said. The deceased is survived by the wife and three children.