KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Thursday granted interim pre-arrest bail to four prominent leaders of the Sindh Action Committee in cases pertaining to allegedly resorting to violence, ransacking and setting fire to private properties in Bahria Town Karachi (BTK) during their protest against the mega housing scheme on June 6.

Police had booked Dr Qadir Magsi; chairman of the Sindh Taraqi-pasand Party, Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah; chairman of the Sindh United Party, Sindh Bar Council member advocate Sajjad Chandio and Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz-Arisar group chief Aslam Khairpuri in 43 identical cases registered at the Gadap City police station in Karachi.

They were booked in cases pertaining to torching restaurants, shops, vehicles and looting money from ATMs during their protest on the Superhighway.

On Thursday, the four leaders nominated in FIRs appeared before the administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts after obtaining protective bail from the Sindh High Court (SHC) Hyderabad circuit bench.

The nationalist leaders moved applications through their defence counsel, including Supreme Court’s senior lawyers Yousuf Laghari, Mir Abdul Haque Talpur, Ali Asghar Narejo and others, asking the court to grant them pre-arrest bail in the present cases.

The counsel argued that the police had lodged false and fabricated cases against the applicants in collusion with the owner of Bahria Town Karachi (Malik Riaz).

They argued that the protesters, including women and children, had gathered to stage a peaceful protest against the BTK project and they were not involved in any violence, ransacking, damaging private properties or terrorism as alleged in the FIRs.

They also denied the allegations that the applicants had delivered anti-state speeches or incited the people to indulge in any act of waging war against the state.

The counsel mentioned that nominated nationalist leaders had been peacefully protesting against BTK, DHA City, Commander City and ASF City projects since 2014, but the authorities concerned paid no heed to them.

Without touching the merits of the case, the judge granted interim pre-arrest bail to Dr Magsi in 21 cases, Mr Shah in 19 cases, Mr Chandio and Mr Khairpuri in one case each.

The applicants were directed to furnish a surety of Rs25,000 in each case.

The matter was fixed on June 26 for confirmation of the interim bail or otherwise. However, the applicants were told to cooperate with the police in investigation.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2021