KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Monday granted bail to a Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker in three identical cases pertaining to facilitating an incendiary speech of party founder Altaf Hussain.

MNA Kanwar Naveed Jameel moved the bail applications through his counsel before the judge of the ATC-II, who is jointly hearing five cases related to Mr Hussain’s Aug 22 controversial speech.

The court granted the MNA bail against a surety bond of Rs100,000 in each case. The lawmaker has already obtained bail in the other two cases.

Meanwhile, the same court dismissed the bail application of another party leader, Gul Fraz Khattak, in one case and reserved its order on his bail plea in another case.

The judge also rejected similar applications of nine workers.

The investigation officers of the cases informed the judge that the warrants against absconding suspects could not be executed. They requested the court to issue directives to their high-ups to execute the warrants.

A DSP (legal) appeared in court and submitted that the arrest of MQM lawmakers/leaders could not be possible without due process as they had public mandate.

The court reissued non-bailable warrants through an additional inspector general of police for the arrest of Mr Hussain, Dr Farooq Sattar and other absconding leaders of the party till Jan 31.

Initially, police had arrested party leaders Kanwar Naveed, Qamar Mansoor, Shahid Pasha, Gul Fraz and around 50 workers in two cases related to the incendiary speech of the MQM founder outside the Karachi Press Club that triggered violent protest, arson attacks and ransacking of media houses. They had shown Mr Hussain, Dr Sattar, Amir Khan and other party leaders as absconders.

However, police charge-sheeted the same set of suspects last month in three identical cases pertaining to the Aug 22 speech lodged at Quaidabad, Steel Town and SITE Superhighway police stations.

PSP leader acquitted in arson case

The sessions judge of Hyderabad acquitted Anis Kaimkhani, president of the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), on Monday in an arson case for lack of evidence. He was represented by Nisar Durrani advocate.

The defence counsel told Dawn that two prosecution witnesses were examined in the court on Monday. One of them was a police officer from Karachi, Khadim Hussain, who had shown arrest of the accused in the central prison of Karachi, and the other was a policeman of Hyderabad, Sub-Inspector Saeed.

Saeed — who had visited the place of offence — told the court that he did not find any burnt car on the spot while Khadim Hussain deposed that he had shown Kaimkhani arrested in this case as he was already imprisoned in the Dr Asim case.

The court also examined the accused who claimed that he was innocent and it was a politically motivated case against him.

The court on Nov 24 framed charges against Kaimkhani, but the judge acquitted the accused for lack of evidence.

Five PWs, in all, were examined by the court. The case against him was lodged at Cantonment police station in 1994. Kaimkhani was granted bail in the case earlier.

Published in Dawn January 24th, 2017