A few years ago, this could have been the perfect crime – and perhaps the birth of a serial killer.  A seemingly respectable, by all appearances, affluent, middle-aged man phones his neighbour’s son, Shakir Latif, 24, and invites him to the Marriot Hotel for a cup of coffee to discuss a legal matter.  Shakir has recently returned to Pakistan after being called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and is now practicing at the law firm of Mandviwalla and Zafar.

            It is Sunday, July 29, and Shakir, by all accounts dedicated to his work and eager to prove his credentials, agrees to set aside his Sunday afternoon siesta and accept the invitation.

            According to Shaikh Amjad’s confessional statement, recorded in the first interrogation report at police headquarters following his arrest, the men discuss the matter over a cup of coffee.  Amjad tells Shakir his ex-wife, Ghazala, has sent him a notice threatening to evict him from the house he is residing in with his current spouse, Nabila.  He is looking for legal advice.  Shakir says he cannot suggest any course of action before studying the papers.  Amjad responds that the relevant documents are at his office – would Shakir be agreeable to collecting the file from there?

            Shakir complies, the two men set off for the ‘office,’ each in their respective cars.  It is about 4.30 pm.  En route, Amjad detours, Shakir in tow.  He pulls into the parking lot of Chinatown near Bilawal House; Shakir follows suit.  Amjad tells Shakir there is a dispute over the basement of the restaurant: he owns this portion of the property, but the proprietors of the restaurant have illegally taken possession of it.  He contends he wants Shakir to see the site and suggest a remedy.  The restaurant is shut.

            Then, asking whether he can ride to the office with Shakir in order to give them more time to discuss these matters, and saying he will make his own way back, Amjad proceeds to climb into the passenger seat of Shakir’s car.

            They drive to a house on street 10 of Defence Authority’s Phase V.  In Amjad’s own words, “When we got there, I rang the bell to give him the impression there was a chowkidar, but he was not responding.”  So Amjad unlocks the gate, and Shakir drives in.

            Taking Shakir in and seating him on a sofa, Amjad states, “I questioned, ‘do you drink?’  He said he did, so without asking I fixed him a glass of whisky, in which, on account of a premeditated plan, I had already added cyanide poison.”  Shakir declines the drink, saying he has to go to office later that day.  Amjad then hands him a glass of orange juice laced with potassium cyanide.  He says, “But I could tell that it had such a strong odour that I could not make him drink it.”  Amjad says he now begins to consider the ramifications if Shakir does not imbibe the poison.  He states, “To frighten him and to justify bringing him here, I told him ‘your father owes me five-six crore rupees; I have been compelled to do this zabardasti.’  I took out the revolver lying under the sofa and placed it before him.”

            Amjad proceeds to tell Shakir that the case he said he wanted to discuss was a ruse to bring Shakir over, so that he could recover the money from his father.  He continues to grill the young man about his father’s finances.  Shakir says his family cannot presently pay any amount, but might be able to borrow something from his uncle.  He asks to speak to his father.

            During the course of this conversation, Amjad recounts, “even though he didn’t want it, he kept sipping the orange juice and I also kept prodding him to drink it.”  Shakir finishes the entire glass of juice.  Amjad says, “we sat like this for a while but there seemed to be no obvious effect of the poison on Shakir.  I got tired of sitting and waiting.”

            Subsequently, however, Shakir starts to vomit.  Amjad takes him to the bathroom; Shakir lies down, but “he was still alive,” says Amjad.

            Presumably getting impatient, Amjad contends, “I fired with my pistol, but it jammed, it didn’t fire.  So I loaded two bullets in my revolver, but it didn’t fire either.  Then I waited for him to die… at approximately 9.00 clock I was satisfied he was dead.”

            Amjad proceeds to wrap the corpse in a sheet and tie it with “red nylon rope.”  He states, “I put the corpse into his car’s dicky and parked the car in the lawn.  Then I took a rickshaw and came to my house in Gizri.  I was very tired and didn’t have the energy to collect my car, so I sent my driver to Chinatown Restaurant to get it.

            “On 29.7, after killing him, I attended my friend Sabir’s daughter’s wedding in Erum Gardens.”

            The same night Amjad calls Shakir’s father from his son’s mobile.  He says “Your son is with me.  Organise some money.”  The following day he calls again and quotes a figure: two million rupees.  The calls continue in this vein for two days, as negotiations over the sum are conducted.

            Unbeknownst to Amjad, Shakir’s father is now in close, albeit unofficial contact with the CPLC and police.  On their advice he tells Amjad in one conversation that Shakir’s office is demanding some files that were lying in his car; if they are not produced it could spell trouble for all concerned.  He also says Amjad should refrain from calling from Shakir’s cell phone because since it is company property, it may be under observation.

            Shortly, Amjad deposits the files under a rock in a vacant plot opposite his and Shakir’s houses.  He also stops using Shakir’s mobile phone and starts to call from PCOs.

            Meanwhile, Amjad is unaware that the net is closing in on him.  The CPLC’s state of the art satellite system combined with the authorities’ arrangement with the mobile companies and PTCL, and some ingenuous strategising by CPLC officials under Jamil Yusuf in tandem with the police, have enabled the investigators to zero in, through his calls, on Amjad’s area of operation.

            Amjad has meantime purchased a voice changer and is using it in his conversations with Shakir’s father.  His demand for ransom has now whittled down to 25 lakh rupees.  He believes Shakir’s father and he are about to close the deal.  On August 4 he makes a call from a pay phone in Saddar.  It is the last one: the police move in for the kill.

            In his confessional statement before a magistrate, Amjad retracts his earlier confessions made before two independent witnesses – CPLC officials – and the police, saying he was “pressurised” and “tortured into” making them.

            Amjad now maintains that he did not kidnap Shakir, and his death was an “accident,” following which he panicked and devised an elaborate scheme to throw Shakir’s family off the track.  As such he claims, the case is not a matter for the Anti Terrorism Court’s (ATC) purview.

            What he cannot deny, is that he led the investigators to the scene of the crime and identified the corpse, the site where the remaining potassium cyanide had been disposed of, and the shop from where he had purchased the poison.  Nor  does he deny the chronology of events, even while now disputing the manner in which they occurred.

            The case has, however, been accepted by the ATC and is scheduled to be heard imminently.

            Interestingly, at his initial challan at the court on August 24, Amjad claimed he did not have the funds to hire a defence attorney, so the court is now bound to appoint one for him.

            For their part, members of the CPLC and police state that as far as they are concerned, it is an “open and shut case,” of kidnapping for ransom and of premeditated murder, and therefore very much an ATC matter.

            What further lends their argument credence, they contend, is the fact that Shakir Latif was not Amjad’s first choice of victim.  By his own reckoning, before calling Shakir he had called, in turn, three others using a pseudonym each time – the owner of the Dolmen companies, the proprietor of Habib Oil and last, Dr. Shuja, the son of the director general of KDA – inviting each of them for a cup of coffee on the pretext of business propositions that might have interested them . All of them declined.  The men corroborate having received these calls.

            According to the police, if he had got away with this crime, there is every reason to believe he would have attempted it again – and again.  In his first statement Amjad acknowledged he had rented the house on 10th street for the purpose of luring potential victims there.  “Shakir paid with his life to prevent such evil from perpetuating,” says a police official.  His father echoes the sentiment, “My son is a martyr.”

            The case is novel in several other ways as well, most significantly in the fact that the victim was dead even before negotiations for ransom began.  Jamil Yusuf says, “This is one of the first questions people raise – they wonder if there’s more to the case than meets the eye.  The fact is, in virtually every kidnapping in Karachi to date, the criminals have operated in gangs, either from the interior of Sindh or the outskirts of the city.  They have the luxury of spiriting their hostages away to inaccessible locations, and the time to negotiate.  Most have no connection with their victims so there is no real fear of the recognition factor.  It’s a clear- cut transaction and they do not breach the code: take the money and free the victim.  In Amjad’s case he was operating alone.  He could not leave Shakir alive and alone in his rented house while he negotiated the ransom for fear he would escape, and chances of him being identified in such an event were too great to risk.  So he eliminated him.”

            For Shakir’s family the loss is staggering – he was the only son of his parents’ four children, the youngest child born after a gap of many years.  He was also the first member of the Chinioti clan to have become a barrister – a source of great pride to his clansmen.

            Theirs is not the only loss.  Bright, generous and “the perfect gentleman,” Shakir’s coterie of friends was vast and varied.  “There was nothing even remotely unlikeable about him,” says a close friend.  Others, many of whom are poised to return to Pakistan after graduation from colleges abroad, and still others who have just made the move, maintain Shakir’s death has seriously caused them to reconsider their decision to return.  “We had planned to set up our own law firm one day,” says a friend who is scheduled to take the bar this year.  “There were so many of us following in Shakir’s footsteps.  Now that dream has died, and along with it many hopes for this country as well.”  Adds another, “Shakir’s death is a monumental loss – he was the best among us.”