FAISALABAD: A judicial magistrate empowered under Section 30 rejected a police request for two-week judicial remand of three arrested lawyers, quashed the case registered against them on charges of jubilant firing, and directed police to release them forthwith.

Sources said police officials had also decided against arresting the remaining lawyers wanted in three cases of aerial firing to avoid confrontation with the legal fraternity. However, the district bar association did not seem satisfied and demanded action against the operations senior superintendent of police (SSP) and other policemen who raided the houses of lawyers on Friday night.

The bar association announced anotherstrike for Monday (today) against police action although the magistrate, Muhammad Sagheer, discharged the arrested lawyers Humayun Fayyaz, Shakeel Safdar and Farrukh Saleem from the case.

Police had booked the lawyers on charges of jubilant firing following the results of Punjab Bar Council on Nov 28 and later added Section 324 of the PPC to the case. They produced the lawyers before the magistrate and demanded 14-day judicial remand, which was rejected.

The magistrate mentioned in his order that there was nothing on record that showed that the suspects committed an act that amounted to murder under Section 324 of PPC.

“As per available record, in the FIR and statement of complainant it is not mentioned that the accused kept, carried or displayed any kind of arm in contravention of any special order of the Provincial Government.

Moreover, no such order or notification, if any, issued by competent authority is available on record. It is very much clear from record that nothing was recovered from accused persons, present before court, so raising of aerial firing endangering human life does not arise when no arm is recovered from accused persons. Thus, the offence U/S 337H2 PPC does not attract.”

Meanwhile, no action has been taken so far against the lawyers who allegedly attacked the Sargodha Road police and also besieged the People’s Colony police station against the arrest of their fellows.

A police officer told Dawn that they had decided to stop raids on lawyers to defuse the situation as the department was not being backed by the government.

He said instead of granting bails to the suspected lawyers, they had been discharged from the case although there was solid evidence and police detected the suspects with the help of footage.

The officer did not respond when asked why police did not produce evidence before the magistrate when the bail hearing of the lawyers was under way. He claimed that they assessed the situation and wanted to cool down the legal fraternity, which was why they did not contest the case vigorously.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2020