KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Friday reserved its order till June 29 on the bail application of senior Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Aamir Khan in a case pertaining to instigating terrorism and harbouring criminals.

The MQM leader was booked for allegedly providing shelter to 26 wanted suspects arrested by Rangers during a pre-dawn raid on and around the party’s Nine Zero headquarters in Azizabad on March 11, and using them for terrorist activities.

Mr Khan, through his counsel, moved a bail application and after hearing arguments from both sides, the judge of the ATC-II reserved the judgement till June 29.

The defence counsel argued that the allegations against his client were baseless since there was no independent witness in the case and all the prosecution witnesses placed in the charge-sheet were Rangers and police officials.

He further submitted that the prosecution remained unable to bring out any incriminating evidence against the applicant despite detaining him for around three months, adding that the arrested suspects had also not deposed against him for sheltering them.

The lawyer maintained that hundreds of people worked at the MQM’s headquarters and thousands others visited daily and it was difficult to identify criminals among them.

However, the special public prosecutor of Rangers opposed the bail application and claimed that the applicant’s custody was still necessary as investigation was not yet completed.

The judge expressed displeasure over the submission of the prosecutor and asked him as to why the charge-sheet was submitted if the investigation was still under way.

Remand of six KMC officials extended

A judicial magistrate extended on Friday physical remand of seven suspects, including six officials of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, in a fraud case.

The court also remanded a newly arrested KMC official in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency.

The FIA had arrested KMC director-education Mansoor Mirza, his predecessor Muhammad Amin, deputy director Raziuddin, assistant director Muhammad Mazhar, clerks Hassan Ahmed and Naveed James and bank officer Aleem Qadri on June 17 for embezzling million of rupees through the salaries of ghost and fake employees and since then they had been in the custody of the FIA.

After the end of their remand, the FIA produced the seven suspects along with a recently held suspect, KMC additional director-education Saleem Shah, in court.

Judicial Magistrate (Malir) Muhammad Ali Memon handed over suspect Shah to the FIA on one-day remand and also granted an extension in the remand of the remaining suspects till June 27.

Published in Dawn June 27th, 2015

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