RAWALPINDI, Sept 19: The Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday rejected the bail petitions of 11 accused persons, including a brother of local PML-N leader Mohammad Hanif Abbasi, in the ephedrine case.
The bench comprised Justice Ijaz Chaudhry and Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan. After the court ruling, the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) arrested seven persons - Abdul Basit Abbasi, the brother of the PML-N leader, and his partner Ahmed Bilal, Chaudhry Mohammad Rafique, Abuzar Faizi, Asif Chaudhry, Hamid Raza and Sirajuddin.
Another accused person in the case, Colonel (retired) Tahirul Wadood Lahoti, could not be taken into custody because he was not present in the courtroom when the bail applications were turned down.
Three of the 11 accused persons - Mirza A. Rehman, Abdul Basir and M. Sajid - are already in the judicial custody at the Adiala Jail, but they had also applied for their post-arrest bail.
It may be mentioned that Colonel Lahoti was a co-accused in the case relating to the misuse of 9,500 kilogrammes of ephedrine in which former federal minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin and Musa Gilani, a son of ex-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, are also allegedly involved.
The other case is related to misuse of 500 kilogrammes ephedrine which was registered against Hanif Abbasi in July last year.
Mr Abbasi had obtained an interim bail from the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench in July, 2012.
His brother Basit Abbasi and partner Ahmed Bilal were on an interim bail granted to them by the same court on August 7, 2013.
The ephedrine quota case first surfaced in February 2012 after the Supreme Court pointed out to political involvement in the alleged illegal allocation of the 9,500 kilogrammes of ephedrine to two pharmaceutical companies and its conversion for sale in the local market.
After the LHC proceedings on Thursday, an ANF official told Dawn that the indictment of the accused persons in the case had been delayed because the outcome of the bail petitions was awaited in the court.
He expressed the hope that during the next hearing, the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) court would indict all the accused persons as the bail applications of the accused have been dismissed.
Advocate Faisal Hussain, who is representing Musa Gilani, said his client had already obtained a bail from the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
He, however, said the ANF would use the LHC judgment in order to strengthen their argument in the CNS court.
