SUKKUR: Aijaz Jakhrani, the adviser to the chief minister on prisons, on Monday disclosed that he had managed to obtain his pre-arrest bail till July 14 from a Bahawalpur (Punjab) court.

Speaking to reporters in Jacobabad, Mr Jakhrani said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had prepared several “false” references against him and its team was bent upon arresting him. A NAB team recently conducted a raid on his residence and tried to enter it without warrants, he claimed.

The NAB team had faced resistance from a mob outside his residence when it tried to arrest Mr Jakhrani on June 29. The team alleged that its members were manhandled by the mob.

Meanwhile, three suspects nominated in the alleged attack on the NAB team outside Mr Jakhrani’s residence slipped away from the sessions court, Jacobabad, on Monday. They had appeared in the court to get their pre-arrest bail confirmed.

As soon as their lawyers withdrew the application for confirmation, Waseem Jakhrani, Zafar Ali Buriro and Khadim Bhutto slipped away to escape arrest.

The judge asked the Police Line SHO as to why they were not arrested; the police officer replied he did not know about withdrawal of the suspects’ application. “The suspects told me that the bail had been confirmed till July 16, and they left the court,” he said.

The court ordered immediate arrest of the suspects.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2021