KARACHI: In what appeared to be an attempt to ensure that former provincial home minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza goes to jail, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah said on Thursday that his government was considering sending cases against the disgruntled leader to a military court for trial.

After presiding over a meeting of the PPP’s Sindh Council, Mr Shah told a press conference that Dr Mirza used a Kalashnikov and threatened police and, therefore, cases were registered against him and sent to an anti-terrorism court.

He said Dr Mirza obtained pre-arrest bail for three days from the Sindh High Court, but the matter of confirmation of the bail would be decided by the ATC.

Referring to the 21st Amendment under which there was no provision of bail in cases being tried by military courts, he disclosed that the provincial government was mulling over sending cases against Dr Mirza to a military court, where he would not be able to secure bail.

He said that even when the estranged PPP leader took the law into his own hands, forcibly entered a police station, waved a Kalashnikov and threatened to kill a police officer, police did not enter his house.

Accompanied by provincial minister Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani and others, Mr Shah declared that the entire PPP was behind its co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari and the party leadership and workers would fight anyone who hurled allegations against them.

He said the party’s Sindh Council condemned and rejected all allegations of Dr Mirza and expressed full confidence in the leadership of Mr Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur, who is the president of the PPP’s women wing.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play