KARACHI: Three suspects escaped from the premises of an anti-corruption court on Thursday following the dismissal of their pre-arrest bail applications in a trade subsidy scam.

Mehmood Rangoonwala, Yusuf Rangoonwala, Abdul Nasir and his wife Naseema Nasir through their counsel had moved pre-arrest bail applications.

However, after hearing arguments from both sides, judge of special federal anti-corruption court-I Mohammad Azeem dismissed bails of the male applicants and granted interim bail to the female suspect.

As soon as the court dismissed the bail pleas, the suspects walked away without facing any resistance.

According to the prosecution, the suspects in collusion with some officials of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan have allegedly obtained fraudulent trade subsidies of around Rs30 million through fictitious claims and backdated cheques.

They were booked in December last year under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonesty inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947.

Meanwhile, the same court partly heard on Thursday arguments on acquittal applications in an over two-and-a-half decades old poll rigging case.

Malik Hayat Awan and Malik Jan Mohammad with their accomplices, including a paralysed and two dead men, have been charged with taking away 50,000 identity cards from the Pakistan Security Printing Press before the 1988 elections apparently for poll rigging.