09 November 2004	Tuesday	25 Ramazan 1425

PESHAWAR, Nov 8: The Peshawar High Court on Monday granted bail to four alleged militants arrested by security agencies a few months ago.

A single-judge bench of Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi accepted four bail petitions of the accused, Qari Abdul Basit, Rehmat Munir, Shah Khalid and Hazrat Ali.

The court directed that the accused-petitioners should be released after furnishing two sureties of Rs500,000 each.

The prosecution informed the court that the four were arrested on Aug 25 from different localities. Abdul Basit and Hazrat Ali were charged with manufacturing remote-controlled explosive devices. The other two were accused of preparing chemical weapons.

The petitioners were charged under section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, and section 5 of the Explosive Substance Act. They said they were kept in illegal detention for almost a month, though their arrest was shown on Aug 25.

The counsel for Abdul Basit contended that he was running a mobile phone repairing shop in Qissa Khwani Bazaar and had no links with Al Qaeda or any other militant organization.

The lawyer said that the authorities made his client's arrest public only after his relatives had filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court. He said Abdul Basit ran a small-time shop and it was ridiculous to say that he made explosive devices there.

The counsel for other petitioners also refuted the prosecution claim that they had links with militants. They said the case was based on flimsy grounds.

One of the petitioners, the counsel said, had a chemicals shop from where nothing objectionable had been recovered.