KARACHI: The administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts on Monday referred three more cases of alleged police encounters to the inspector general of police for an inquiry.

Police produced two wounded suspects, Hamid and Qasim Ahmed, before the administrative judge and submitted that they suffered bullet wounds in police encounters in Nazimabad and Shah Faisal Colony areas on Feb 12, respectively.

The investigation officers (IO) of the two cases sought their custody for questioning.

One of the IOs submitted that suspect Hamid, along with his accomplice, Majid Hussain, was robbing a man when a police patrol of the Rizvia Society police station reached the crime scene and killed Majid and arrested Hamid in a wounded condition during an encounter.

The second IO submitted that sus-pect Qasim was apprehended after he sustained a bullet wound in a shootout while his accomplice managed to escape.

The New Karachi police also informed the court that they 1(illed an unknown robber after he, along with his three accomplices, engaged in a shoot-out with police on Feb 11 in Bilal Colony.

The judge, while remanding the two suspects in police custody, sent the three cases to the Sindh IGP for initiating a probe by constituting an internal inquiry committee as provided in Section 5(2)(i) of the AntiTerrorism Act, 1997.

Referring to his earlier order in 65 identical cases, the administrative judge directed the IGP to also submit the report about the outcome of the inquiry in the cases as well.

Expressing grave concerns over the alleged growing high-handedness of police for shooting over 80 suspects in 65 cases of alleged encounters in a short span of one-and-a-half months, the court had on Feb 11 directed the IGP to conduct internal inquiry into the incidents and sought report within 15 days.

Man jailed for life for blasphemy A sessions court on Monday sentenced a man to life imprisonment in a blasphemy case under the country`sblasphemy laws.

Rehmatullah, a rickshaw driver, was found guilty of desecrating the pages of the Quran in Shah Faisal Colony in August 2015.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (east) Mohammad Ahsan Khan Durrani found the accused guilty after recording evidence of witnesses and concluding arguments from both sides.

Jail authorities produced the accused in court in custody and after the pronouncement of the verdict the judge remanded him back to prison along with his conviction warrant to serve outthe sentence.

According to the prosecution, complainant Qari Shahnawaz, head of a seminary in Shah Faisal Colony, had asked the watchman of the seminary for proper disposal of the torn pages of the Quran. The watchman called his brother-in-law, rickshaw driver Rehmatullah, and handed him 11 bags of torn pages of the holy book and gave him Rs500 as transportation charges, it added.

However, the prosecution further said that these bags were later recovered from a nearby manhole.

The accused was arrested on Aug 4, 2015. A case was registered against him under Section 295-B (defiling etc of copy of the Holy Quran) of the Pakistan Panel Code at the Shah Faisal Colony police station.