PESHAWAR, May 19: An additional district and sessions judge on Saturday extended the pre-arrest interim bail of three Awami National Party (ANP) leaders in the murder case of People’s Party Parliamentarians’ (PPP) leader Syed Qamar Abbas and his friend till May 26.
The complainant in the case, Mr Syed Tahir Abbas, had requested the court, presided over by judge Syed Zamurad Shah, for time to arrange for a counsel.
The court fixed May 26 for the next hearing and directed the prosecution to produce the record of the case on that date.
The three applicants, senior vice-president Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, his brother and MPA Bashir Bilour and Mr Bashir’s son Haroon Bilour, were previously granted a pre-arrest bail on May 12 by the district and sessions judge, Miftauddin Khan, who had directed them to appear before the concerned judge on May 19.
A number of ANP and PPP workers gathered at the court to support their respective leaders. A large police contingent was deputed on the premises to avert any clash between the two parties.
The complainant, Mr Tahir Abbas, had nominated the three brothers, Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, a former federal minister, Senator Ilyas Ahmad Bilour and Bashir Ahmad Bilour, and Mr Bashir’s two sons, Mr Haroon and Mr Usman Bilour, in the May 6 killing of Qamar Abbas and his friend, Mohammad Ali, in Peshawar.
The applicants’ counsel claimed that his clients were falsely implicated in the murder case, adding that there was no evidence on record that could connect the applicants with the offence.
The deceased Qamar Abbas and his two bodyguards were charged with murdering Shabir Ahmad Bilour, the only son of Ahmad Bilour, during the 1997 general elections. Although Mr Abbas was acquitted by a trial court, no compromise could take place between the two families.
The second deceased, Mohammad Ali, was the son of a prominent leader of Tehrik-i-Jaffria Pakistan, Mr Anwer Ali Akhundzada.
