KARACHI, April 16: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Saturday adjourned the hearing of the case against 11 Jundullah activists facing the charge of involvement in the June 10, 2004 attack on the motorcade of the then Karachi corps commander.
The trial could not proceed due to the absence of some defence counsels. The ATC Judge, Feroz Mehmood Bhatti, conducting the trial in the central jail, fixed April 23 as the next date of hearing.
The accused included Attaur Rehman, Shahzad Ahmed Bajwa, Yaqoob Saeed, Uzair Ahmed, Shoaib Siddiqui, Danish Inam, Najeebullah, Khurram Saifullah, Shahzad Mukhtar and Khalid Rao.
The motorcade of the former corps commander Lt-Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat had came under attack on in Clifton area and left 10 people, including six army personnel, dead and another 13 people, three of them policemen, injured.
Meanwhile, the same court also put off hearing of six cases of terrorism against some Jundullah activists. The cases, pertaining to bomb blasts and killing of policemen, had been registered at different police stations in the city.
REMANDED: A man accused of kidnapping a school teacher for ransom was on Saturday remanded in police custody till April 19.
The accused, Irfan Haider Jaffery, was produced before the Administrative Judge of Anti-Terrorism Courts in Karachi, Justice Amir Hani Muslim.
According to police, Jaffery had kidnapped 24-year-old Ms H.Y. while she was on her way to her job place in the PECHS on April 6 this year. He had demanded Rs1.5 million as ransom for her release, the police said.
After tracing out the telephone number the accused had used to demand the ransom, the police managed to arrest him on April 14 and recover the kidnap victim, the police told the court.
SENT TO JAIL: Justice Amir Hani Muslim of the Sindh High Court who is also administrative judge of the Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) in Karachi, on Saturday sent two accused in a kidnapping for ransom case to jail. He ordered the investigation officer of the case to submit their challan on April 23.
The accused, Mohammad Sheraz and Iqbal Hussain, are facing the charge of kidnapping a schoolboy, Anas Ahmed, from Gulberg area last week and demanding ransom for his release. They were produced before the court on Saturday. According to police, the accused had demanded Rs200,000 and 200 grams of gold as ransom but were arrested. —PPI
