• Family of deceased persons, injured forgive suspect Natasha in the name of Allah
• Lawyers of victims, suspect express ignorance about rumours of out-court-settlement involving blood money
• Order on suspect’s bail plea in drug case next week

KARACHI: A sessions court on Friday granted post-arrest bail to the SUV driver in the Karsaz traffic accident case after legal heirs of deceased persons “pardoned” her in the name of Almighty Allah.

Lawyers said suspect Natasha would not be released as she was facing a separate drug case.

According to an interim charge sheet, Imran Arif and his daughter Amna were killed and Abdul Salam and Shane Alexander injured when a recklessly driven SUV ran them over near Karsaz on Aug 19.

On Friday, the legal heirs of dec­eased Imran and Amna — widow Rom­ana, her daughter Uma­ma and son Osama — along with Imran’s brother and complainant Imtiaz appeared before Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Shahid Ali Memon and submitted their affidavits through their counsel Tahir Iqbal Malik.

In their affidavits, signed on Sept 2, the legal heirs informed the court that they had pardoned suspects Natasha and her husband, Danish Iqbal, “in the name of Almighty Allah” as it was an “unintentional incident/ accident which was not committed purposely”.

They also submitted that they have “no objection” if the court granted them bail.

The two injured persons also filed “no objection” affidavits through their counsel.

State prosecutor Syed Khursheed Abbas Bukhari did not oppose the bail application and submitted that he had no objection to the out-of-court settlement between the parties.

After hearing the counsel for legal heirs, state prosecutor and defence counsel Aamir Mansoob Qureshi, the court granted bail to suspect Natasha against a surety bond of Rs100,000.

The court noted that the legal heirs of the deceased persons and two injured had acknowledged the contents of their affidavits and owned their signatures.

“The applicant [Nata­sha] accused is a woman and she is behind bars. It means she is no longer required for further investigation. Therefore, under such circumstances, bail plea stands allowed,” the court order said.

Meanwhile, the same court also confirmed the pre-arrest bail of Danish Iqbal against a surety bond of Rs100,000.

In a separate order, the court observed that the name of the applicant was not mentioned in the FIR as well as in the interim charge sheet.

Earlier, the applicant had surrendered before the trial court and secured interim pre-arrest bail on September 4, after getting protective bail from the Sindh High Court last month.

Bail plea in drug case

After being granted bail by the sessions court, the defence counsel and state prosecutor Muzafar Soomro appeared before Judicial Magistrate (East) Muhammad Raza Ansari to argue on suspect Natasha’s separate bail application in a drug case.

The defence argued that the investigating offi­cer had manipulated the blood and urine samples that were taken from his client.

He stated that drug-related substances could remain in blood for up to 15 days and in the urine for up to three days. But, the medical report only showed the presence of methamphetamine (ice) in urine and not in the blood sample.

The state prosecutor opp­osed the bail application.

After hearing the arguments, the court reserved its order for Monday.

Blood money

While rumours are circulating on social media regarding the out-of-court settlement involving a huge amount between suspect’s and victims’ families, the defence and counsel for the legal heirs expressed their ignorance about any such deal.

Counsel for legal heirs Tahir Iqbal Malik told the media outside the court that diyat is calculated in three ways and considering the financial status of the suspects’ family, the total diyat amount for dec­eased Imran and Amna would come to approximately Rs37.5 million.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2024