KARACHI: An antiterrorism court granted on Thursday bail to a Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker in two cases pertaining to sedition, anti-state offences and attack on media houses.

MNA Kanwar Naveed Jameel with other party leaders Qamar Mansoor, Shahid Pasha and Gul Faraz Khattak and around 50 party workers have been detained in both the cases related to a highly-provocative speech of the MQM founder on Aug 22 outside the Karachi Press Club that triggered violent protest, arson attacks and ransacking of media houses.

Kanwar Naveed through his lawyer Shaukat Hayat moved bail applications and submitted that the applicant was not present at the crime scene while the footages of the incident had also corroborated it. However, the prosecution opposed the bail plea.

After hearing both sides, the ATC-II judge granted bail against a surety bond of Rs2 million in each case while dismissed the identical applications of three other suspects.

The court adjourned the hearing till Jan 7 after the investigating officer submitted that the process of proclamation had been completed and sought more time to conclude the report about the property of absconders.

On a previous hearing, the court had directed the IO to start proceedings against the absconding accused under Sections 87 (proclamation for persons absconding) and 88 (attachment of property of person absconding) of the criminal procedure code after the police informed it that they were unable to execute the warrants repeatedly issued by the court against Dr Sattar, Altaf Hussain, Amir Khan and 30 others.

Complaints against police officers

A judicial magistrate admitted on Thursday direct complaints against two police officers for not filing investigation reports in as many cases regardless of repeated court orders.

Rafiq Mohammed, reader of a judicial magistrate (west), moved the court of a judicial magistrate (south) for direct complaints under Sections 174 (non-attendance in obedience to an order from public servant) and 175 (omission to produce document to public servant by person legally bound to produce it) of the Pakistan Penal Code against Assistant Sub-Inspectors Nazeer Hussain and Mohammed Mithal of the Site-B police station for not submitting reports in two cases registered under the Sindh Arms Act, 2013 and the Sindh Temporary Residents Act, 2015 respectively.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2016