KARACHI: A sessions court on Thursday dismissed bail applications of six young men held in connection with the death of a young man, who fell from a multi-storey residential building in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Phase VIII last month.

Police booked and arrested Syed Muhammad Ammar, Usman Ahmed, Muhammad Awais, Aziz Ahmed, Ahmed Jamil and Syed Khizr Akbar following the death of their 26-year-old friend, Adil Masood Khan, on July 31.

On Thursday, Additional District and Sessions Judge (South) Shahid Ali Memon pronounced his order reserved earlier on the suspects’ bail applications seeking grant of post-arrest bail.

While dismissing their bail pleas, the judge noted that the applicants claimed themselves to be close friends of the victim but they left him unattended. “Therefore, under such circumstances, it can be said that the accused persons ruined the trust of [their] friend,” the order said.

The judge observed that even if it was presumed that the suspects being friends of the deceased had no mala fide intention on their part, then the question arose as to why they had left the body unattended.

The court ruled that the case was at the stage of investigation and if bail was considered under such circumstances, it would amount to encouraging such a bad behaviour of the applicants.

Earlier, defence counsel submitted that their clients were innocent and implicated in the case as the victim was their friend.

On the other hand, the state prosecutor argued that the suspects did not deserve to be released on bail as they had abandoned their friend after the incident and fled with mala fide intentions.

He said the police incorporated Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) in the case, due to which they were not entitled to the concession of bail.

According to the prosecution, the victim had got an apartment on one-day rent in a DHA high-rise building, where he and his friends were having a party. Adil fell from the balcony of the flat, hit the ground and died. His friends fled the scene and the building administration shifted the body to a hospital later.

A case was registered under Section 322 (manslaughter) and 34 (common intention) of the PPC at the Darakhshan police station on the complaint of victim’s sister Varda Masood.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2022