An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Karachi on Saturday issued release orders for former Malir Senior Superintendent Police Rao Anwar, a day after the court granted him bail in a case pertaining to the placement of pistols and hand grenades on victims' bodies in an extrajudicial encounter in which Naqeebullah Mehsud was killed.

Mehsud was among four people killed in a fake encounter on January 13. SSP Anwar had claimed that all four of the men killed, allegedly on his orders, belonged to the terrorist outfit Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Anwar went into hiding soon after demands for his arrest in the Naqeebullah murder case gained traction after it came to light that the victim had been a shopkeeper and aspiring model from Waziristan who had settled in Karachi.

Protests staged by the Mehsud tribe and the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement lent impetus to the call for justice for Naqeebullah.

A Joint Investigation Team probing the incident then found that the encounter was staged.

Anwar resurfaced dramatically at the Supreme Court after repeated pleas from the chief justice, after which he was subsequently arrested.

Soon after his arrest, his house in Malir Cantonment was declared a sub-jail. He had later moved an application for provision of 'Better Class' facilities in the sub-jail. The court had accepted Anwar's application for facilities, including an exemption from being handcuffed.

He remained under arrest in two cases against him — the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah and three others, and for foisting pistols and hand grenades on them after killing them in a staged shootout in Shah Latif Town.

He was granted bail in the first case on July 10, when the court said that he was not present at the time of the encounter, and in the second yesterday, on similar grounds.

Anwar is set to be released soon.