KARACHI: While a magistrate issued another non-bailable arrest warrant against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s mayoral nominee, Waseem Akhtar, on Wednesday, the Sindh High Court gave him a respite when it granted him pre-arrest bail in two other cases pertaining to supporting party chief Altaf Hussain’s telephonic speech against the army.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Sadiq Hussain Bhatti gave bail to the MQM leader, who won a union com­m­ittee chairman seat in Karachi’s East district, in the two cases in the sum of Rs50,000 each till Jan 18.

Earlier, Mr Akhtar had filed a constitutional petition seeking cancellation of the cases. The petition is still pending disposal.

The MQM leader was booked in two separate but identical cases on Dec 3 by the Sohrab Goth and SITE Superhighway police on the complaints of two ordinary citizens.

On Wednesday, the MQM leader along with his counsel Advocate Khawaja Naveed and party leader Haider Abbas Rizvi appeared in court to seek protective bail in the cases.

At the outset of the hearing, Justice Bhatti asked the petitioner’s counsel to read out the FIRs against the MQM leader.

The counsel read out the FIRs stating that the Sohrab Goth police registered the case against the petitioner under Sections 123-A, 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with the Section 25 of the Telegraph Act and Sections 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act on the complaint of a citizen, Mohabbat Khan.

The complainant in the FIR alleged that during a television current affairs programme, Mr Akhtar had supported his party chief’s statement against the federal institutions, the Inter-Services Intelligence and the Military Intelligence, operation Zarb-i-Azb and the Karachi operation.

The complainant accused the MQM leader of inciting the public to violence and harming the national interests of the country in his remarks made on television channels.

Forwarding grounds for pre-arrest bail, Advocate Naveed stated that in the cases, bogus allegations of disloyalty and persuasion of public for incitement were levelled against the MQM leader.

He said that his client did not remember making remarks against the military establishment.

Besides, the counsel said that the complainant did not have locus standi to lodge the FIR.

Moreover, he said that no charge-sheet had so far been filed in any of the two cases against Mr Akhtar.

He said that the marriage of his client’s daughter was scheduled to be held on Jan 12 and the MQM leader apprehended his arrest in the cases.

Mr Akhtar is stated to be nominated in as many as 27 different cases. The MQM has announced that he will be the party’s candidate for the office of Karachi mayor.

Earlier, an antiterrorism court reissued arrest warrants for 20 MQM leaders including Altaf Hussain, Farooq Sattar, Waseem Akhtar, Nasreen Jalil, Khushbakht Shujaat, Rashid Godil, Khawaja Izhar, Qamar Mansoor and Rauf Siddiqui for delivering and listening to a speech against the military establishment.

The MQM leaders and 200 unidentified party workers were booked in 23 FIRs in which the complainants alleged that the accused had attended a public gathering and facilitated the MQM chief in his speech against the security agencies on July 12 this year.

Mr Rizvi is stated to be booked in three cases.

The self-exiled party chief had accused the Rangers of torturing and killing his party workers in the ongoing targeted operation against criminals in the city.

Warrants out in loudspeaker violation case

A judicial magistrate issued on Wednesday non-bailable warrants for the arrest of around 10 MQM leaders in a case pertaining to misuse of loudspeakers and rioting.

The police booked the MQM leaders and workers for allegedly taking out a rally without permission near the Quaid’s mausoleum, blocking roads, misusing loudspeakers and rioting on Nov 26 in protest over frequent raids and arrests of party workers by Rangers.

The investigation officer submitted a charge-sheet in court in which Dr Sattar, Mr Akhtar, MS Jalil, Wasay Jalil, Faisal Subzwari, Mr Rizvi, Kanwar Naveed Jameel, Muhammad Hussain, Kamal Pasha and 1,500-2,000 unknown MQM workers were shown absconders.

Judicial Magistrate (east) Nagaram Mehesani issued non-bailable warrants against the absconders till Jan 22 and directed the IO to arrest them and produce in court till the next hearing.

According to the prosecution, the MQM took out a rally and staged a sit-in when police stopped it from marching further towards the Jinnah Courts, the headquarters of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh.

A case was registered under Sections 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 6/7 of the Sindh Sound (Regulation) Act, 2015, commonly known as the Loudspeaker Act, at the Soldier Bazaar police station.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2016