KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court has granted bail to 12 officials of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in a kidnapping for ransom case.

The CTD men, including an inspector Shoaib Qureshi and others — who were in prison on judicial custody — had filed post-arrest bail applications through their counsels before the ATC-1 in Clifton.

After hearing the defence counsels and state prosecutor, the court granted them bail against a surety bond of Rs50,000 each, without touching the merit and demerit of the case.

Earlier, the court had recalled its earlier interim order and dismissed their pre-arrest bail and directed police to take the eight CTD men — who were on interim bail — into custody.

According to the prosecution, the CTD officials, including inspector Shoaib Qureshi, driver Muhammad Khaleeq and informer Kashif Ali Khan were booked under sections 365-A (kidnapping for extorting property, valuable security, etc), 384 (punishment for extortion), 385 (putting a person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with relevant section of the Anti-Terrorism Act, at the Bilal Colony police station on the complaint of Saad Shafiq.

The complainant said he was abducted along with his friend Faizan by the CTD officials on June 5, 2022.

He alleged that the kidnappers had released them (the complainant and his friend) after extorting money. Following the incident, he approached the court to register an FIR against the CTD officials.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2024