KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Friday allowed an application of Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar seeking permission to go to Iran on an official visit.

Mr Akhtar, who is facing trial in a case pertaining to the treatment of alleged terrorists at hospitals run by former petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain, through his lawyer moved an application and asked the court to allow him to proceed on an official visit to Iran next month.

The ATC-II judge allowed the application but directed the applicant to furnish an amount of Rs2 million as surety bond.

The former federal minister has been booked for allegedly treating and harbouring suspected terrorists, militants and gangsters at his hospitals while the city mayor, along with Pak Sarzameen Party president Anis Kaimkhani, MQM-P lawmaker Rauf Siddiqui, PPP’s Abdul Qadir Patel, Usman Moazzam of Pasban and former MQM leader Saleem Shahzad have been named as co-accused for allegedly asking Dr Asim to treat suspected militants.

The Sindh High Court had granted bail to all the accused except Saleem Shahzad in November last year and directed them to deposit their original valid passports in the trial court and not to leave the country without permission of the trial court.

The trial court has also reserved its order on the bail application of Saleem Shahzad till March 11.

The former MQM leader was arrested on Feb 6 shortly after he had arrived at the Karachi airport from Dubai. He was sent to jail the following day.

Police get more time to investigate ‘encounters’

Meanwhile, the administrative judge of antiterrorism courts on Friday granted another 15 days to the provincial police officer to complete probe into 65 identical cases of alleged shoot-outs.

A deputy superintendent of police (legal) appeared before the court on behalf of the inspector general of police and filed a progress report along with an application to seek more time to complete the investigation.

He informed the court that in light of the court’s Feb 10 order, the IG constituted three inquiry committees headed by DIGs to probe the cases.

The first committee comprising DIG (south), SSP central and SP Orangi Town will look into 42 cases of alleged encounters registered at different police stations in the west zone of the police’s administrative structure, he added.

The DSP submitted that another inquiry committee headed by DIG (CIA) and two members, SSP Korangi and SP Gulshan, was tasked with probing into 15 cases reported in the east zone of police.

He told the court that the third committee comprising DIG (west), SSP City and SP Saddar will investigate eight cases registered at the police stations in the south zone of police.

He said the heads of the inquiry committees had sought more time to complete the inquires and requested the court to grant another 15 days for the completion of the ongoing investigation.

The administrative judge of ATCs, Karachi, allowed the application and directed the police chief to submit the outcome of the inquiry committees within 15 days.

On Feb 10, the court had expressed grave concerns over the growing high-handedness of police for wounding over 80 suspects in 65 cases of alleged shoot-outs during the last one-and-a-half months and directed the police chief to conduct internal inquiry into the incidents and sought its report within 15 days.

The court earlier deplored that the suspects were mostly shot in the legs and many of them were found to be drug addicts. It depicted ‘classical high-handedness’ of law-enforcement agencies, the court observed.

The judge in his Feb 10 order had also observed that the superintendent of central prison had shown grave concerns about the physical condition of such suspects and said the hospital in jail had been filled with injured suspects.

On Feb 13, the administrative judge had sent three more identical cases to the police chief for investigation by constituting an internal inquiry committee as provided in Section 5(2) (i) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2017