KARACHI: Two leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London were remanded to prison by the administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts in a case pertaining to an alleged hate speech of the party founder.

Police arrested Hassan Zafar Arif and Amjad Ullah Khan on Dec 20 following their release from the central prison after two-month detention under the Maintenance of Public Order.

Initially, they were arrested on Oct 22 from outside the Karachi Press Club, where they had arrived to address a press conference.

They have been booked for allegedly facilitating and listening to their party founder’s speech in July in which he reportedly intended to outrage religious feelings and asked workers to extort money from traders.

The police produced them before the court to seek their custody for questioning.

The administrative judge, however, sent them to prison on judicial remand till Jan 3 and directed the investigating officer to submit the investigation report till next hearing.

MQM founder Altaf Hussain, Dr Farooq Sattar, Khushbakht Shujaat and dozens of others are shown absconders in the remand paper.

The case was registered under Sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups etc) 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 500 (punishment for defamation) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2016