Noor Mukadam's father, Shaukat Mukadam, on Thursday submitted a petition with the Islamabad High Court, challenging the grant of bail to six employees of Therapyworks, including its owner and chief executive officer Tahir Zahoor.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Muhammad Ata Rabbani had granted bail to the six employees — Zahoor, Amjad Mehmood, Dileep Kumar, Abdul Haq, Wamiq Riaz and Samar Abbas — on Monday and ordered them to submit bail bonds of Rs5 million each.

They had been arrested by police on Aug 15 and were accused of "concealing evidence" related to Noor's murder.

Shaukat submitted his petition through his counsel Shah Khawar and named the six and the sessions judge as respondents.

The petition, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, asked for a recall of the bail granted to the suspects "in the interest of justice, fair play and equity".

It argued that "the respondents are threatening the petitioner of dire consequences" and were abusing the bail granted to them, adding that the "petitioner shall suffer an irreparable loss" if their bail was not cancelled.

The petition said that the sessions judge had made observations about the evaluation of evidence which it claimed was not the proper procedure in deciding such applications.

It also alleged that Mehmood and Kumar had concealed information about receiving injuries at the crime scene and instead narrated a "deceitful" story about how they were injured.

Additionally, it said the suspects had neglected to mention the cancellation of the post-arrest bail application for Zakir Jaffer and Asmat Adamjee — parents of Zahir Jaffer, the primary suspect in the Noor murder case — by ASJ Sheikh Muhammad Sohail.

It also argued that bail applications for suspects in a case were to be decided by one judge to "avoid any contradictory judgement".

Noor's murder

Noor, 27, was found murdered at a residence in Islamabad's upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20.

A first information report (FIR) was registered later the same day against Zahir, who was arrested from the site of the murder, under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the victim's father.

Zahir's parents and household staff were also arrested on July 24 over allegations of "hiding evidence and being complicit in the crime". They were made a part of the investigation based on Shaukat's statement, according to a police spokesperson.

In his complaint, Shaukat had stated that he had gone to Rawalpindi on July 19 to buy a goat for Eidul Azha, while his wife had gone out to pick up clothes from her tailor. When he had returned home in the evening, the couple found their daughter Noor absent from their house in Islamabad.

They had found her cellphone number switched off, and started a search for her. Sometime later, Noor had called her parents to inform them that she was travelling to Lahore with some friends and would return in a day or two, according to the FIR.

The complainant said he had later received a call from the suspect, whose family were the ex-diplomat's acquaintances. The suspect had informed Shaukat that Noor was not with him, the FIR said.

At around 10pm on July 20, the victim's father had received a call from Kohsar police station, informing him that Noor had been murdered.

Police had subsequently taken the complainant to Zahir's house in Sector F-7/4 where he discovered that his "daughter has been brutally murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and beheaded", according to the FIR.

Shaukat, who identified his daughter's body, has sought the maximum punishment under the law against Zahir for allegedly murdering his daughter.

Police later said that Zahir had confessed to killing Noor while his DNA test and fingerprints also showed his involvement in the murder.