KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday granted interim pre-arrest bail to a lawyer in a case pertaining to murder of his former employee in Defence Housing Authority.

Justice Salahuddin Panhwar granted bail to Advocate Khawaja Shams-ul-Islam till April 11 subject to furnishing a surety of Rs100,000.

Police claimed to have booked Advocate Khawaja Shams-ul-Islam and others in the murder case of Zulfiqar Ali in DHA Phase-IV on Wednesday morning.

On Thursday, Shams-ul-Islam appeared before the court along with a number of lawyers and moved an application seeking grant of pre-arrest bail to enable him to surrender in the case and join the investigation.

In the application, the applicant denied all the allegations levelled against him by the complainant in an FIR.

According to the prosecution, the 22-year-old deceased was passing by Ibrahim Masjid in DHA Phase-IV on foot when two assailants on a motorcycle opened fire on him.

He was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

According to the FIR registered by the victim’s brother Mohammed Amin, Zulfiqar had worked as a driver for Shams-ul-Islam for two years. The complainant alleged that the lawyer had his brother murdered over some “old dispute”.

The complainant suspected him of murdering his brother.

A case against the lawyer and other suspects was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted, committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Gizri police station.

Around 100 relatives of the victim, who hailed from district Umerkot, had staged a sit-in on main Sunset Boulevard in DHA on Wednesday demanding arrest of the killers.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2019