KARACHI, March 15: An anti-terrorism court reserved on Saturday judgment in a kidnapping for ransom case against a worker of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement.
Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the ATC-3 fixed March 20 for announcement of the judgment after hearing final arguments by Special Public Prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa and defence counsel Zahid Rohila.
According to the prosecution, Liaquat Hussain alias Nadeem Gadha, along with his accomplice, Nasir alias Boni, took 12-year-old Abid Husain with them on Feb 2 around 4pm when the boy was returning home from a nearby religious institution.
The accused took the boy to a school where another accomplice of theirs, Shafiq, was present. The two kidnappers left the hostage with Shafiq and went to the hostage’s house where they demanded Rs10,000 from Abid’s father, Sabir Husain, who gave them Rs2,000 with the promise that the rest of the money would be arranged soon.
The two accused allegedly took the boy’s father and his elder brother to the school and handed the boy over to them.
Accuse Liaquat was arrested by the police after the boy’s father lodged an FIR at the area police station on the insistence of those living in his locality.
The accused deposed before the court that he went to the boy’s house to collect the monthly donation for the party on the direction of the party leadership.
His counsel argued that his client had been arrested and implicated in the case as the area people had become hostile to the party workers after workers of the rival Muttahida Qaumi Movement returned to the area.
BOMB BLAST CASE: An anti-terrorism court put off the hearing of a bomb blast case against a worker of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al- Aalmi.
Sabir Waseem has been charged with firing an anti-tank rocket (BM-107) that had pierced through the wall of Commerce College on Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road on November 23, 2001.
According to the bomb disposal squad, the device was an anti-tank rocket, weighing 25kg with 10-12 kgs of explosive material.
Judge Feroz Mehmood Bhatti of the ATC-2, who is conducting the trial inside the Central Prison, Karachi, fixed March 17 for the next hearing after recording the statement of the Judicial Magistrate, South, Irum Jehangir, who had conducted the identification parade of the accused and recorded his confessional statement. The statement of the magistrate remained incomplete.
According to the prosecution, accused Waseem, along with absconder Asif Ramzi, fire the rocket from near the college to target Americans staying on the second and third floors of Sheraton Hotel.
It was alleged that the two Aalmi men, carrying the rocket and its locally- made launcher in a kit bag, reached near the hotel on a motorcycle around 9:30pm. The two men positioned the launcher on the pushcart of a junk vendor. While accused Waseem was trying to position the launcher to the hotel, the rocket exploded due to short-circuit and hit the wall of Commerce College. It landed in a classroom making an eight-inch hole in the wall. Accused Sabir Wasim was also injured in the explosion.
The accused, who was arrested on April 17, last year during a shootout with the police, disclosed his involvement in the case during interrogation.
Special Public Prosecutor Mazhar Qayyum conducted partial examination-in- chief of the magistrate, who would complete her deposition on the next date.
