November 01, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 2, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 31: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday accepted an application for the transfer of an extortion case to a regular court by observing that the case did not fall under the jurisdiction of the ATC.

The suspects, Mohammad Akbar Shaikh and his wife Sitara, are facing charges of threatening and extorting money from the residents of Rose Garden apartments in the limits of Soldier Bazzar police station and, illegally occupying a part of its passage.

The suspects through their counsel moved an application under Section 23 (power to transfer cases to regular courts) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 for the transfer of the case.

The defence argued that the prosecution had no evidence against his client adding that the case did not fall under the jurisdiction of ATC. The public prosecutor did not oppose the plea.

The judge, Hasan Ali Bukhari of the ATC-I, pronounced the verdict after recoding final arguments from both sides.

The case was registered against the suspects under Sections 384, 448, 341 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code at Solider Bazzar police station.

The same court on Friday deferred till Nov 13 the verdict on a factory owner’s kidnapping for ransom case.

Manzar Khan, Jalal Khan, Maqbool Ahmed and Habib-ur-Rahman were charged with kidnapping Jalaluddin Kiyani for ransom.

Earlier, the judge had reserved the judgment for Oct 31 after recording final arguments from both sides.

However, on Friday the judgment was deferred.