KARACHI: An ‘arms dealer’ turned up on Saturday before an antiterrorism court after it issued warrant over his absence in the Safoora Goth bus carnage case.

Police had submitted a charge sheet against Zahid Abdul Qadir, alias Zahid Motiwala, in February for allegedly providing weapons to the assailants who had killed 47 people of the Shia Ismaili community, in an armed attack on their bus near Safoora Goth in May 2015.

After remaining in hiding for a couple of years, the suspect surfaced in 2017 in the high court for protective bail and then obtained an interim pre-arrest bail from the trial court.

However, the ATC issued a non-bailable warrant for his arrest over his unexplained absence in the last hearing.

The suspect along with his lawyer appeared before the judge of ATC-VI, who is conducting the trial inside the central prison, and through an application submitted an apology and requested the court to condone his absence.

While allowing the application, the court adjourned the hearing till April 20 to decide the fate of his interim bail.

The police had also named Fishermen Cooperative Society vice-chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, his brother Hussain Umar Siddiqui, alias Shibli, and Sajid Naeem, alias Peena, as accused in the recently filed charge sheet for allegedly providing weapons and helping the main accused.

The SHC had released the trio on bail in December 2016 after one of their relatives had moved an application against the jail authorities seeking their release and contended that a military court had acquitted them.

The court officials said that they had yet to join the trial after their release.

The military court had sentenced Tahir Minhas, Saad Aziz, Asadur Rehman, Mohammad Azhar Ishrat and Hafiz Nasir Ahmed to death in May 2016 in the Safoora Goth bus carnage case and the murder case of prominent social activist, Sabeen Mahmud.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2018