A Lahore district court on Wednesday issued bailable arrest warrants for actor Saba Qamar and singer Bilal Saeed in a case of the alleged desecration of Wazir Khan mosque.

Judicial Magistrate Jowaria Munir Bhatti issued the warrants, while setting the bail at Rs30,000 each, when the two did not appear for a court hearing.

The next case hearing was set for October 6.

The two became the centre of criticism last year in August 2020 after it had emerged that they had shot footage inside the historic mosque while working on the video of a song, “Qubool hai”.

A sessions court had directed the Akbari Gate police station house officer to proceed in accordance with the law on an application seeking registration of a case against the two and others for shooting the video.

Subsequently, the Akbari Gate police had registered a first information report (FIR) against the duo under Section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The section deals with the offence of injuring or defiling a place of worship, with the intent to insult the religion of any class.

The two were granted interim pre-arrest bail on August 15, 2020, until Aug 25, with a further extension given in September 2020.

According to their counsel, the FIR was baseless and contrary to the facts. He said no dance or music was performed in the mosque as alleged in the FIR and the two were innocent and falsely implicated in the case for ulterior motives.

Qamar and Saeed had also apologised for the incident and issued explanations that shed further light on the video shoot's context.