KARACHI, July 15: Judge Syed Aley Maqbool Rizvi of Anti-terrorism Court, Karachi Division, on Thursday exonerated Dr Arshad Waheed and Dr Akmal Waheed from charges of complicity in attacks on corps commander's motorcade and a Rangers van.
The concerned investigation officer submitted a report with the court under Section 497(b) of Cr.PC stating that there were insufficient evidences available against the accused. The police also requested that the names of the two brothers be dropped from both the cases.
However, the police sought physical remand of the two accused in another case registered at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station in which they have been charged with harbouring the terrorists belonging to Al Qaeda and providing treatment to the terrorist who had sustained injuries while indulging in different terrorist attacks.
The judge remanded the two doctors in police custody till July 21. The police had sought their remand up to July 29 but the court asked the IO to complete the investigation within seven days.
The two doctors were produced before the court amid tight security. Parents and wives of both the accused were also present in the court. The doctors had earlier been arrested in connection with the attack on the corps commander's motorcade, killing members of law-enforcement agencies and bomb blasts in Karachi.
Police claimed that the two doctors had sent Jundullah activists, Shahzad Ahmed Bajwa and Muhammad Qasim, to Wana through their personal assistant, Kashif. In Wana, South Waziristan, the activists met Edia Khan, a militant maintaining close links with Al Qaeda, and received training of using weapons and explosive devices, the police added.
The police further claimed that the doctors had provided shelter to Al Qaeda activists Abu Moosab, Gul Hasan and Hasamul Sani at different places in Karachi and provided medical treatment to Jundullah activist Shahzad Bajwa at Shan Hospital, Gulshan-i-Iqbal Karachi, after he had sustained injuries during an attack on a Ranger's van on March 19.
According to the police, the doctors had also provided medical treatment to Bajwa's absconding co-accused Qasim at the house of one, Attaur Rehman, in Model Colony. Qasim had sustained injuries in the attack on corps commander's motorcade.
Those nominated in the June 10 attack on corps commander's motorcade included Attaur Rehman alias Ibrahim, Shahzad Ahmed Bajwa, Yaqoob Saeed, Uzair Ahmed, Shoaib Siddiqui, Danish Inam, Najeebullah, Khurram Saifullah and Shahzad Mukhtar. -APP/PPI
MORAL VICTORY: The Joint Doctors Action Committee has hailed the exoneration of Waheed brothers from the attack on corps commander's convoy as 'moral victory' of medical profession.
The committee, however, criticized the fresh seven-day remand of Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed as an objectionable step through which the law-enforcement agencies sought to keep the two doctors entangled in legal procedures.
"The aim is to extract confession by hook or by crook," the committee said in a release. It said that involving innocent people in underground activities had become a business for the law-enforcement agencies.
