ISLAMABAD: The Ra­­wal­pindi bench of Lahore High Court (LHC) granted bail to six suspects, including former PTI minister Shehryar Afridi, who were charged with allegedly attacking military installations on May 9.

The LHC division bench comprising Justice Safdar Saleem Shahid and Jus­ti­­ce Anwaarul Haq Pannun granted bail to Mr Afridi and five others including the petitioner Nadia Hus­sain, Haider Mehmood Khan, Asmatullah, Balaj Khan and Sher Sikandar.

They were booked in a case registered with Raw­alpindi’s RA Bazar police station for allegedly ransa­cking GHQ and desecrating the martyrs’ monuments.

The court observed that the petitioner, Ms Hussain, was neither nominated in the first information report nor was identified in the identification parade. A woman named Afshan Khan has already been discharged by the Rawalpindi Anti-Terro­rism Court on June 1.

The bench noted that even though the two suspects, Mr Khan and Mr Sikandar, were nominated but no specific blame was assigned to them. They al­­legedly raised slogans against the army; however, these allegations were not mentioned in the FIR.

Likewise, the suspects, Mr Asmatullah and Mr Balaj, were not nominated in the FIR but were arrested during the identification parade in which no army officer was present. They were not assigned any specific role, the court noted.

Discussing the involvement of Mr Afridi, the bench noted that he allegedly instigated the attack on army installations. His counsel argued that Mr Afridi has already been granted bail in an FIR registered against him on these charges.

The bench was “astonished” to note that “no person sustained injury” during the alleged attacks and no record of the CCTV footage was annexed with the complaint. The court ruled that since the case did not come under the purview of the ATA and other offences invoked aga­inst the suspects were bailable, therefore their bail pe­­­­titions were accepted aga­­­inst surety bonds of Rs100,000 each.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2023