KARACHI: A sessions court on Saturday granted interim pre-arrest bail to a man booked in the Nazim Jokhio murder case.

The tortured body of Nazim Sajawal Jokhio was found at a farmhouse in Malir, said to be owned by Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Jam Awais Bijar on Nov 3.

The victim’s brother, Afzal Jokhio, nominated MPA Awais and MNA Jam Abdul Karim Bijar for their alleged involvement in the murder of 27-year-old Nazim, as he had infuriated the influential persons after trying to prevent the lawmaker’s foreign guests from hunting houbara bustard in Thatta district.

On Saturday, the suspect, Muhammad Saleem Salar, appeared before Additional District and Sessions Judge (Malir) Naveed Ahmed Soomro seeking grant of bail to avoid his arrest.

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The court was informed that the police had nominated him on false allegation of the complainant, who stated that Salar was the person who had visited Nazim Jokhio and summoned him to the farmhouse of the MPA Jam Awais.

He submitted that the tortured body of Jokhio was found outside the farmhouse, but he had nothing to do with the case and the complainant implicated him with malafide intentions.

The applicant said he wanted to join the investigation, but apprehended his arrest by the police. Therefore, he pleaded the court to grant him pre-arrest bail.

Without touching the merits of the case, the judge granted him interim bail till Nov 21 directing him to join the investigation.

The matter will be taken up on the next date for confirmation of his interim bail or otherwise.

MPA Awais, his two guards and three wildlife officials are currently in police custody on remand.

A total of 21 suspects, including five unknown persons, have been nominated in the murder case. MNA Jam Karim had also obtained pre-arrest interim bail from Balochistan High Court.

While the kidnap charge has been added in the FIR, the lawyer for complainant had informed a court that case was not being properly investigated as the police had not inspected the place of incident and the mobile phone of the deceased was also not recovered.

The victim’s family wanted inclusion of Section 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code and relevant sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 in the case as they considered it as an act of terrorism.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2021