KARACHI: A local court has declared television and social media personality Waqar Zaka an absconder over his continuous absence in a case pertaining to Rs86 million transactions in his accounts.

Judicial Magistrate (East) Mukesh Kumar also directed the investigating officer (IO) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to initiate the process of his proclamation and attachment of properties, as required under sections 87 and 88 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

At the outset of the hearing, Zaka’s counsel Salahuddin Panhwar filed a third application requesting the court to condone absence of his client, who was on an official assignment in New York, and also grant him time to argue on the maintainability of the plea.

The magistrate noted that the counsel was previously also asked to satisfy the court on the maintainability of his applications seeking to condone the absence of Mr Zaka, who had neither surrendered before the court nor had obtained bail from any competent court.

Therefore, he dismissed the three identical applications for being “meritless”.

The IO filed a report stating that the non-bailable warrants issued by the court for the arrest of the suspect could not be served since his whereabouts were unknown.

After recording his statement, the magistrate declared Zaka absconder in the case observing that the “the accused has hidden himself at unknown place due to fear of his arrest and there is no immediate hope of his arrest in near future”.

He also directed the IO to initiate the proceedings against the fleeing suspect for his proclamation and attachment of his property under sections 87 and 88 of the CrPC.

The hearing was adjourned till March 2 when the IO is required to file a compliance report.

Earlier, the counsel had informed the court that Waqar Zaka was in New York in connection with a professional assignment and could not appear in court.

In December last year, the IO had filed a final charge sheet stating that Zaka was found involved in luring public into dubious online ‘Initial Coin Offering/Crypt Currency Courses’ and using social media platforms to promote and advise the youth to invest in the speculative risk-based business.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2023