LAHORE, May 24: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday dismissed a Punjab government appeal seeking cancellation of bail granted to five people linked to an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.

The bench headed by Justice Rauf Ahmad Sheikh observed that the prosecution had no concrete evidence against the accused and the court could not issue any order on the basis of allegations.

During the course of hearing it was said that one of the accused released on bail was again picked up by intelligence agencies.

On this, the bench remarked that disappearances of citizens at the hands of agencies should be stopped now. Expressing concern at deteriorating law and order situation in the country, the bench remarked the country was already on the verge of a collapse and decomposed bodies of missing persons were being found in Balochistan.

Defence counsel said in his argument the police had no evidence against the accused therefore government’s appeal was liable to be dismissed.

In this case, police had informed the court at previous hearings that one of the accused involved in the attack died in Afghanistan and another was still missing.

Officials of Lahore police appeared before the bench and submitted a report wherein it was stated that Amanullah had died in Afghanistan and Qari Ashfaq alias Mushtaq was still at large.

An anti-terrorism court had granted bail to Ubaidur Rehman, Javed Anwar, Mohsin Rasheed, Ibrahim Khalil and Qari Ashfaq.

The government in its appeal contended that all the accused were identified during the identification parade and they had confessed their crime during the investigation. A cache of weapons and suicide jackets was recovered from them, but the accused were not appearing before the trial court after getting bail.

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