December 08, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 16, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Dec 7: An additional district and sessions judge in Swabi on Thursday granted a transit pre-arrest bail for 15 days to Zafarullah Khan, a joint director of the Intelligence Bureau. He directed Mr Khan to approach the court concerned in Peshawar within that period.

Mr Khan has been charged in an FIR with illegally taking away from a police station a low-ranked employee of the IB who was arrested on charges of planting explosives near the Chief Minister Secretariat.

Saleem Khan appeared for Mr Khan and requested the court to allow him a transit bail so that he could approach the court concerned.

Meanwhile, the IB employee accused of planting explosives near the CM Secretariat was remanded on Thursday in police custody for four days by an anti-terrorism court. IB’s naib qasid Mohammad Tufail, handed over to the police on Wednesday, was produced in the court on Thursday.

Police officials accompanying him told the court that Tufail had been caught red-handed on Dec 5 while throwing explosives near the boundary wall of the CM Secretariat. They requested the court for a seven-day physical custody of the accused for interrogation.

The court, however, remanded the accused in police custody for four days. Initially, the accused was only charged under section 5 of the Explosive Substance Act, but later the police also incorporated section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act into the FIR.

The day the accused was arrested, a joint director of the IB took him away from a police station along with the seven-inch stick of explosives recovered by the police.

After negotiations between the NWFP police and IB officials, the accused was handed over back to the police.

The police also produced Tufail in the court of judicial magistrate Aurangzeb Khan in connection with a second FIR registered against him and the IB’s joint director for resisting his arrest and destroying evidence.

In that case, the magistrate declined to remand the accused in police custody and ordered that he should be kept in judicial lock-up. That FIR was registered at the East Cant police station under section 224 of the Pakistan Penal Code (resisting arrest by a person), section 225 (resisting arrest of another person) and section 201 (destroying evidence).

It is learnt that a team of interrogators, comprising officials from the federal and provincial law-enforcement agencies, has been interrogating the accused. The team members are: FIA director-general Tariq Khosa, IB’s senior officer Sharif Virk, Hazara DIGP Zulfiqar Cheema and AIGP (operations) Malik Saad.

An official told Dawn that during initial interrogation, the accused expressed ignorance of any conspiracy by the bureau and said his office was situated near the CM Secretariat and he routinely used to throw garbage at the same spot near a drain.

The accused claimed that on the fateful day too he picked up some trash from his office and threw the same at the said spot, after which a constable started asking him all kinds of questions. He was then arrested, he said.