KARACHI, May 17: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday adjourned the hearing of a case pertaining to the PIDC bomb blast till May 22 as the original file of the case was with the Sindh High Court.

Abdul Hameed Bugti who had been accused of masterminding the blast was arrested on June 29, 2007 in the Garden police limits by the Anti-Violent Crimes Unit and was subsequently sent to jail.

On May 31, 2007 the ATC-V had sentenced two brothers, Mangla Khan and Aziz Khan, co-accused in the case, to death on each count of murder and also sentenced them to 10 years in prison on each count of injuring people.

Apart from this, the court had also sentenced the two brothers to life imprisonment for possessing and using explosive materials.

Sources in the court said that the case could be processed only after the availability of the file, which had been transferred to the high court when the co-accused in the same case had submitted their appeals against a court’s verdict.

On June 26, 2007, a division bench of the Sindh High Court had admitted the appeal for a regular hearing.

Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch of the ATC-V is conducting the trial. However, indictment of the accused has been repeatedly deferred for the last eight months due to the non-availability of the file.

On Nov 15, 2005, a powerful blast had ripped through the ground floor of the PIDC House, a multi-storeyed building also housing the offices of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited, killing four private security guards and leaving 21 others injured.

Brahmdakh Bugti, a grandson of the late Nawab Akber Khan Bugti, Salim Bugti and Abdul Majeed Bugti have already been declared proclaimed offenders in the case.

Bail granted

The judicial magistrate, East, Pervez Qadir Memon, granted bail to Munir Abbasi, a suspect in the murder case of a retired faculty member of the University of Karachi against a surety bond of Rs50,000.

The police had booked the deceased’s driver, Saleem alias Shabbir, her housemaid, Khalda, and Munir Abbasi on charges of killing the retired professor. All the suspects had been sent to jail.

However, the investigation officer in the charge-sheet said that Munir Abbasi was involved in a mobile snatching case and his involvement in the murder of the retired professor could not be confirmed. Thereafter, the suspect through his counsel moved a bail application.

The prosecution said that the body of Dr Zeba Zakia, 75, was found dumped in the bushes on January 29 from the jurisdiction of Sachal police station. The deceased was unmarried and used to live alone in her Gulshan-i-Iqbal residence.

Police had registered a case under Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Sachal police station.

IO given three days

The civil judge and judicial magistrate-III, Central, Khushi Mohammad, directed the investigation officer to submit a charge-sheet within three days in a case pertaining to the suicide of a bank defaulter. Earlier, the IO in the case had requested the court to grant him more time.

The prosecution that Mohammad Tufail Shah, 26, who defaulted on a loan had committed suicide on April 27 by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his house in New Karachi.

Earlier that day, a loan recovery team had visited Tufail’s house and had reportedly misbehaved with his mother and sister, which had caused Tufail mental stress that subsequently led to his suicide.

The police arrested the head of the loan recovery team, Sheikh Mohammad Atif, on May 2. Later, he was sent to jail. A case (FIR No 87/08) under Sections 322, 316, 504 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code had been registered at the New Karachi police station on the complaint of the deceased’s mother.

Acquittal plea

Bilal Shaikh, one of the accused in the Justice Nizam’s murder case filed an acquittal plea under Section 249-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in the court of the district and sessions judge, Central.

The judge issued a notice to the pubic prosecutor directing him to appear in court on June 17 for arguments on the application.

According to the prosecution, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, Akhtar Javed Pirzada, Bilal Shaikh and Babar Sindhu are facing charges of the double murder. Justice Nizam Ahmed of the Sindh High Court and his son, Nadeem Ahmed, a lawyer, were shot dead on June 10, 1996 in front of their PECHS residence.

The complainant, retired Group Captain Sikandar, brother-in-law of Justice Nizam Ahmed, had lodged an FIR (357/96) at the Ferozabad police station under the Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The killings were attributed to a dispute over a prized piece of land near Awami Markaz as Justice Nizam Ahmed had opposed its conversion into a commercial plot and illegal allotment. The high court has already acquitted Mr Zardari in the case.