KARACHI: An antiterrorism court has acquitted the chief of the outlawed Peoples Amn Committee Uzair Baloch in a decade-old case pertaining to the attack on a police station.

Uzair along with Taj Muhammad alias Taju, Sheeraz Comrade and Sultan alias Johny was charged with attacking the Napier police station with intention to kill policemen during an operation against criminals in Lyari.

The ATC-VII judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside central prison, pronounced his verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against Uzair. He acquitted him due to lack of evidence.

So far, he has been acquitted in around 18 cases.

However, the alleged Lyari gangster could not be set free since he is facing trial in around 40 cases pertaining to kidnapping for ransom, murder, armed assault on law enforcers and running extortion rackets under the alleged patronage of the Pakistan Peoples Party and police high-ups.

Earlier, state prosecutors Neel Parkash and Ali Raza Abbasi submitted that accused Uzair Baloch, Taj Muhammad, Sheeraz Comrade, Sultan, Zafar Baloch and Noor Muhammad alias Baba Ladla along with their unknown accomplices with common intention and object threw grenades at the main gate of the Napier police station on April 2, 2012.

Defence counsel Abid Zaman contended that his client was framed in the present case with mala fide intentions for ulterior motives by the prosecution, which lacked evidence to prove his involvement in the offences levelled against him.

The counsel pleaded the judge to acquit him of the false charges.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2022