KARACHI: The Sindh High Court granted interim pre-arrest bail to the owner of a restaurant in a case pertaining to the death of two siblings after consuming poisonous food.

Owner of the restaurant Nadeem Mumtaz through his lawyer had moved an application before the SHC to avoid his arrest since a sessions court had dismissed his pre-arrest bail application.

After a preliminary hearing, a bench of the SHC granted an interim bail against a surety of Rs200,000 and directed the applicant to approach the trial court.

The prosecution said that the health of one-and-a-half-year-old Tufail Ahmed, his elder brother Mohammed Omar, 4, and their mother, Ayesha Ihsan, deteriorated at their home in Defence on Nov 10 when they reached there after eating the food from the Arizona Grill restaurant in Zamzama, Clifton. Later, both children died while the laboratory reports confirmed that the siblings died from food poisoning as poisonous bacteria was found in the food of the restaurant, it added.

Two employees of the restaurant have already been detained and they were booked with others under sections 322 (punishment for qatl-bis-sabab), 272 (adulteration of food or drink intended for sale) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Sahil police station.

Notices issued to NAB

Another bench of the SHC on Monday issued a notice to the National Accountability Bureau on a petition of the Karachi Metropolitan Corpo­ration against a call up notice issued by NAB.

The KMC through its lawyer challenged the call up notice and contended that NAB was seeking old record of the KMC in some unknown inquiries without giving any reason.

The counsel argued that NAB was also issuing notices to KMC officials and also pleaded for restraining order from issuing “unnecessary” notices.

A two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro issued a notice to NAB to file comments by Jan 17.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2019