KARACHI: An antiterrorism court reserved on Thursday its order on a bail application of Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker Rauf Siddiqui in a case of providing treatment to alleged terrorists at hospitals of former minister Dr Asim Hussain till Aug 3.

The MQM leader with his party’s mayoral candidate Waseem Akhtar, Pak Sarzameen Party president Anis Kaimkhani and PPP’s Qadir Patel landed in prison after the court dismissed their pre-arrest bail applications on July 19.

Mr Siddiqui through his lawyer Shaukat Hayat moved the trial court again for bail and argued that the allegations were baseless and it was the case of no evidence.

He maintained that the FIR was registered on the basis of a joint investigation team’s report which was not a substantial piece of evidence and had no legal value.

He further submitted that the applicant and other detained suspects could not be tried independently, but they could only be indicted with the alleged terrorists.

Referring to a statement of a prosecution witness before a magistrate against the applicant and other suspects, the lawyer contended that the witness deposed under duress since he remained in custody for days before the testimony.

The Rangers lawyer opposed the bail and argued that the court had rejected the bail applications of the suspects last week and there was no fresh ground to allow a similar application.

He maintained that the prosecution had sufficient ocular and documentary evidence to establish the case.

The ATC-II judge, after hearing arguments, reserved her decision on the bail plea till August 3.

The order on an identical application of Mr Kaimkhani had also been kept for pronouncement on Aug 3.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2016