KARACHI: The Special Court Public Property (Removal of Encroachment) on Monday granted bail to interned Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in a land-grab case.

The Anti-Encroachment Force (AEF) had arrested Mr Sheikh after the judge had revoked his interim pre-arrest bail for ‘failing’ to appear before the court on Aug 17.

The AEF Zone-I had booked Mr Sheikh in a case pertaining to alleged illegal occupation of 40 acres of state land in Manghopir near Northern Bypass.

On Monday, Judge Akhlaque Hussain Larik granted the post-arrest bail to Mr Sheikh against a surety bond in sum of Rs100,000.

His lawyer says jail authorities refused to release PTI leader despite court order

The judge also fixed Sept 8 for framing charges against the opposition leader and others nominated in the present case.

Defence counsel Zaheer Mehsud argued that the neither his client had been arrested from the crime scene nor was any evidence available with the prosecution to establish his role in the commissioning of the alleged offence.

He further argued that the applicant had no role in illegal occupation of the land in question, as falsely alleged by the prosecution with mala fide intention to achieve their ulterior motives.

The counsel claimed that Mr Sheikh had been subjected to political victimisation at the hands of the ruling party in the province.

He argued that the Sections under which the FIR had been lodged did not fall under the prohibitory clause, therefore, bail might be granted to the applicant, who was behind bars for the last five days.

In the meanwhile, the court directed the superintendent of the Karachi central prison to release Mr Sheikh forthwith if his custody was not required in any other case.

Earlier, prison officials failed to produce the suspect in court during hearing of his bail application.

Jailer refuses to release Haleem

Later in the evening, Advocate Mahsud told Dawn that the prison authorities refused to release the opposition leader, claiming his custody was required in other cases as well.

He said that they had approached the Karachi central prison with the release order of Mr Sheikh issued by the court, but Jail Superintendent Hassan Sehto refused to release his client, saying his custody was required in some other ‘undisclosed’ cases.

The lawyer said a habeas corpus application had been filed with the relevant court seeking recovery of the PTI leader from alleged “illegal confinement” at the jail.

He saidthat District and Sessions Judge (East) Naeem Memon had issued a notice for Tuesday (today) to the jail superintendent with direction to submit a report regarding alleged unlawful confinement of Mr Sheikh.

On the last date, the court had dismissed the application of Mr Sheikh seeking confirmation of the interim pre-arrest bail granted him to earlier, as he had failed to appear before the investigating officer. After the bail dismissal, he was arrested and sent to prison on judicial remand.

A case was registered under Sections 8(i) of the Special Public Property (Removal of Encroachment) Act, 2010 at the Anti-Encroachment Force Zone-I, Karachi, on behalf of the state.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2022