KARACHI, Aug 29: Special Judge for Suppression of Terrorist Activities, East, acquitted on Thursday a former PPP stalwart Masroor Ahsan and three others in a treason case.

The case against Mr Ahsan and 22 other workers of the Pakistan People’s Party, including Mir Shahnawaz Bhutto and Mir Murtaza Bhutto, was registered in 1981 by the Ferozabad police for allegedly conspiring and attempting to wage war against Pakistan and collecting weapons under section 121, 121-A and 122 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The prosecution had cited as many as 133 witnesses against the accused persons. However, only four of them were examined in the court during the past 19 years.

During these years, nine accused persons — Mir Shahnawaz Bhutto and Mir Murtaza Bhutto, sons of late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Islamuddin Changa, Salamullah Tipu, Rehmatullah Anjum, Ghulam Mustafa Baloch, Ilyas Siddiqui, Agha Ashfaq and Manzar Alam — died.

Ten other accused persons — Sohail Sethi, Najme Alam, Ikram Qaimkhani, Nisar Qureshi, Saifullah Khalid, Nasir Jamal, Arshad Ali Khan, Maulana Javed Naumani and Qadir Bux Jatoi — are still absconding and they have been declared proclaimed offenders in the case.

Only four accused persons, Masroor Ahsan, Masood Hasan, Aftab Ahmed Memon and Hanif Ahmed Patel, who were on bail, faced trial.

It was alleged that the accused persons in active connivance of each others had entered into a conspiracy to wage a war against Pakistan “by means of criminal force or show of criminal force to the federal government.”

The judge acquitted the accused persons as the prosecution could not bring on record any shred of evidence.

ASHFAQ CHIEF: The same court acquitted a leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and a former MPA, Ashfaq Chief in a arms possession case.