RAWALPINDI, July 26: Special Judge Anti-Terrorism Court Sakhi Mohammad Kahot on Thursday acquitted 51 Jamia Fareedia students of different cases relating to the Lal Masjid incident.

The judge sent two students to Adiala Jail on judicial remand for eight days in the murder case of a Rangers’ soldier and acquitted 21 others.

Similarly, the judge declared 19 students not guilty in the Chinese nationals’ kidnapping case registered with the Margalla police, and acquitted 11 others in the police personnel’s kidnapping case registered with the Kohsar police.

The court ordered that the students may be released if they were not wanted in any other criminal case. Meanwhile, the police sought adjournment of hearing in the Chinese nationals’ kidnapping and CD burning cases, saying they could not produce the accused — Maulana Abdul Aziz, his wife Umme Hassan and daughters Tayyaba, 17, and Asma Dua, 13, — in the court due to their engagement in the Supreme Court. The judge put off the hearing till August 4.

In a related development, the chief commissioner of Islamabad declined to entertain the application of Maulana Aziz for setting up of a high-level commission to probe the Lal Masjid operation, saying such a power rested only with the federal government.

—A Reporter