LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday started recording statements of prosecution witnesses against six contemnors, including two PML-N parliamentarians from Kasur for staging an anti-judiciary rally.

Kasur District Police Officer Zahid Marwat and two other witnesses testified before a three-judge full bench headed by Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi seized with contempt proceedings against MNA Waseem Akhtar, MPA Naeem Safdar and others.

Additional Advocate General Shan Gull, being prosecutor in the case, conducted testimony of the witnesses.

The bench adjourned the matter till June 1 and directed the contemnors to record their statements on the next hearing.

Two of the indicted contemnors -- Nasir Khan and Jamil Khan --had already tendered unconditional apology. However, the bench had not taken any decision on it so far.

Kasur police had registered a case against over 80 persons out of which six were identified as members of the ruling PML-N. The police booked them under Sections 166, 506, 341, 228 109, 147 and 149 of the PPC. Later, section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 was also added to the case.

Kasur District Bar Association President Mirza Naseem had moved the petition seeking contempt of court proceedings against them. He pleaded that the protest in Kasur was a conspiracy against the judiciary.

He alleged that the rally was led by PML-N’s parliamentarians while some local party leaders also joined it.

Meanwhile, a division bench extended pre-arrest interim bail of MNA Waseem Akhtar, MPA Naeem Safdar and two others till May 31.

The bench also issued a notice to police on a separate application filed by the suspects, challenging the inclusion of section 7 of ATA in the case.

They pleaded that the provision of terrorism law was added to the case without any justification. They asked the court to order deletion of the section 7 and transfer the case to an ordinary court from the ATC.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2018